Quoting John Hawkins:
Despite America’s inspirational legacy, this has not always been an exceptionally tolerant nation and there are few Americans who would deny that. That being said, we’ve now gone so far in the opposite direction that it has become problematic as well. Tolerance taken to an extreme has actually impeded our ability to rationally discuss vitally important issues that will determine whether our country continues to be successful and prosperous over the long haul.
For example, the debate over gay marriage consists largely of one side talking about thousands of years of human experience and a potential devaluing of marriage that could lead to more society-damaging out-of-wedlock births in the future — while the opponents of traditional marriage throw tantrums, try to get people fired for disagreeing with them, and shriek “homophobe” at the top of their lungs. . . .
Then there’s immigration. The whole point of allowing people to immigrate to this country is to benefit the people who are already here. Yet, if you try to have any sort of substantive conversation about how many people we are allowing into the country each year, where they should be coming from, or how we should choose them, the screaming starts again. “Why do you hate immigrants . . . ?”
Then there’s the dilemma posed to us by the war on terror. Most Muslims are moderate and are not hostile to our country. However, there is no reliable way to tell the moderate Muslims from the Islamic radicals who want to see us dead. Moreover, the moderate Muslims are usually very silent about the actions of the radicals and even tend to quietly support them when they engage in objectionable practices that have been previously held in contempt by Western civilization. In European nations, we’ve seen unconscionable restrictions imposed on free speech, Sharia tacitly accepted as the law of the land in certain areas, significant Islam related increases in rape and violence, and in some cases, non-Muslim women forced to take up the veil for their own protection. Shouldn’t we be having a real back-and-forth exchange, free of shouts of “Islamophobia” — about how to avoid importing the problems we’re seeing in France, Britain, and the Netherlands into our country?
If you’ll notice, these are all extraordinarily important issues that will ultimately have a great deal to do with whether our children live in a nation as great as the one we grew up in. Can we continue to be the pre-eminent nation in the world if we give the short-shrift to these momentous topics just because a few people claim to be offended?
Filed under: Culture, History, News, Politics, Religion, Worldview
