My friend sent me his response. The short version is that it isn’t religion but immigrants not respecting our culture and political correctness. I would post the whole thing but it long and I don’t feel comfortable posting someone else’s email.
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There are are couple of issues with your email. First off is you seem to be talking about a number of people and mixing up who is who. There are the terrorists, immigrants, Americans, and your personal american archtype. In your email you seem to make no distinction between terrorists and recent immigrants. You have made a decision that all recent immigrants are in league with terrorists who hate America. You also seem to think it is these immigrants who are responsible for political correctness and the dictation of what you are allowed to think. Those people responsible for PC are not recent immigrants they are people who have been here for generations. They are the children of the 60s not some other culture. They have no where to go back to, they are Americans, not your personal archetypal Americans, but real Americans with different politics and philosophies. PC is a force from within America not external to America.
As for the evil of political correctness, what is PC stopping you from doing. You use PC as a pejorative term without considering what it means. In your email you spoke about respecting women, but how is that different from political correctness stated in a non-pejorative way? The essence of PC is respecting people as people that means not assuming they are like you. That means when engaged in conversation with someone not offending them. And while were at it why is stating that what someone said offended you such a bad thing? That’s what the PC supporters are saying. But in the worst case they are speaking on behalf of someone they believe would be offended but isn’t. But often they speak for those without the courage or security to speak for themselves.
Perhaps it’s gone to far, but since PC is the only thing keeping racial epitaph being spit at my sister in the street I’m not sure I want to roll back our sense of acceptable behavior to where it was in the 50s. The respect encompassed by PC is counter balanced by a disrespect of diversity.
This movement, the one you are espousing says that everyone should be just like “me” and anything I’m not offended by given who I am and my upbringing shouldn’t offend anyone else. It is the belief that since you aren’t offended by humor that is degrading to gay men or blacks or some other minority group they shouldn’t be either. When people say offensive things it is the duty of people offended to stand up and say hang on a second why are you treating me like a second class citizen? My hands are just as strong, my mind just as keen and my blood just as red, why don’t I deserve respect just because I am not part of the mob.
In your email you talked a lot about respect but that is the key concept of PC. Respect is the core of the thing you chosen as the enemy. When you don’t respect someone just because they had a different life than you American culture believes that is wrong. You can still say things but you have to accept the social consequences of your speech. You’ll have endure how your speech alters peoples perception of you. Freedom of speech doesn’t give you freedom from the social consequences of that speech only the unhindered speech and freedom from legal consequences (save libel and slander).
You seem to be convinced that your right be offended by other cultures is absolute. But there are millions of Americans who have been here for generations who don’t think that is a socially acceptable position. Why are you correct and they aren’t. The difference is simple matter of philosophies and preconceptions. I would argue that it’s hard to find a reason to take offense just because someone was raised in a different culture. These are not terrorists or the mythical immigrant who is trying to reshape America into the some other country. These are human beings who have no hatred towards America except for that which is earned by individual Americans. People learn to hate by being hated.
As for interfering with our sovereighnty, since when did our sovereignty extend to other countries? Why do we consider it our right the meddle in the affairs of other governments? Yes we are constrained by the interests of other countries just as other countries are constrained by our interests. We are the lone superpower but do you really think there can be a good outcome if we decide to try and counquer every country with conflicting interests? If we did that WWIII would cast us as the Nazis. We exist in a community of countries and pretending that we exist in a vacuum is burying our head in the sand.
With power comes responsibility. If we abdicate our responsibility as statesmen something will fill that void, probably not in our interests.
You speak about immigrants not following our laws. We arrest and treat rather unfairly(unlimited detention, limited judicial review, secret evidence, etc.) non-citizens who commit crimes. Equally our justice system makes no exception if you came from another country. If anything, since chances are the immigrant is poor and may have communication barriers, the justice system is harsher on them.
As for immigrants honoring our culture because it is theres now, don’t forget the other side of it, there culture is just as much yours. The Immigrants you seem to have a problem with are the ones who have embraced American culture have the gall to speak about it. Question it, see its strengths and weaknesses, find where it can be made better, that is the American way, not the silent acceptance of mob rule.
While Americans have fought and died for freedom in many countries, I object to “just about every.” More to the point we’ve been instrumental in setting in dictatorships and depriving people of freedom. We can not look at our selves through some sort of lens that only allows us to see the good. We must accept our shortcomings along with our virtues.
As for you eye for an eye conclusion, if we are alive and our opponent isn’t it isn’t over. The cycle of vengeance has another turn. Our opponents brother certainly should be held to the same standards as us. An eye for an eye means he has the moral position to kill us for our actions.
To make it less theoretical say we bring to bear our full might against the people of Afghanistan (many of them innocent by any definition). We reduce the country to a deadmans land free from human life (or a reasonable approximation of that). That will have the predictable results of causing the people of Pakistan to revolt and form a hard line Islam theocracy a la the Taliban. The main difference is that they will nuclear weapons and a clear and unquestioned event to point to rally the Islamic world behind. Things go down hill from there.
That is not a path I want to follow, it not a solution its a complication to an already complicated situation.
Culture, Justice, Politics