terrorism

Though he tries to act like he's playing the role of peacemaking conciliator, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat eventually reveals his true feelings:

By global standards, [Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the mosque] may be the model of a “moderate Muslim.” But global standards and American standards are different. For Muslim Americans to integrate fully into our national life, they’ll need leaders who don’t describe America as “an accessory to the crime” of 9/11 (as Rauf did shortly after the 2001 attacks), or duck questions about whether groups like Hamas count as terrorist organizations (as Rauf did in a radio interview in June). And they’ll need leaders whose antennas are sensitive enough to recognize that the quest for inter-religious dialogue is ill served by throwing up a high-profile mosque two blocks from the site of a mass murder committed in the name of Islam.

Douthat makes the same error that most other observers are making in failing to see the wide spectrum of beliefs in Islam. Yes, there are those (al-Qaeda) who couch their hatred of America in the religion (just like there are Christians who use their faith to justify their hatred of our government). But there are also Muslims -- in fact, the large majority of those in the United States -- who worship peacefully, just like other the Judeo-Christian worship communities Douthat taps earlier in his piece.

I wouldn't like to be told as a Christian that I could not buy a property in Wichita, Kansas because Scott Roeder, a Christian zealot, killed a doctor who performed abortions. Same goes for Atlanta, Georgia, when Eric Rudolph bombed the Olympic Park during the ceremonies in 1996, to "to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand." But because Christianity is the privileged religion in Douthat's second America, we simply understand that Roeder and Rudolph are right-wing nut jobs that do not represent the wide majority of Christians. The same doesn't go for Muslims.

There's a great (and scary) article in The Nation today about how homeland security has invaded our higher education system and altered the face of political participation on campus through the use of "free speech" zones, tasers, hidden cameras and data mining techniques. It's pretty scare and well worth a read.

Two comments on this. First, this goes directly to what I've said in response to statements by Boomers like Al Gore and Thomas Freidman that young people today aren't political enough and aren't radical enough, and generally fail to live up to the legacy of the 60's. As this article thoroughly details, campuses are a very different place now than they were when Boomer were growing up, and the consequences of radical political action are MUCH higher. The Boomers have completely disincentivized the kinds of activism they use a a yardstick for measuring political action.

Second, government interference on campus isn't necessarily a new thing. When I was studying Russian in college, I heard many stories from my professors about how, at the height of the Cold War, the government had plants in graduate programs, keeping an eye out for potential "Reds." Also, let's not forget that the United States Student Association started out with funding from the CIA. What's different now is the degree of interference and the consequences brought down on students who fail to abide by new guidelines.