In a speech to a group of professors in Germany on September 12th, Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, as “evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Almost immediately, his words were picked up by every media outlet imaginable, and broadcast to the entire world. Predictably, the Islamic world went nuts. Many protesters immediately proved that there is some obvious and concrete validity to the Pope’s comments by erupting into violent threats, burning effigies of the Pope in the streets, etc. Even the whole firing guns into the air and lighting cars on fire doesn’t exactly scream “religion of peace”. Of course, the Vatican is now back-peddling like crazy and apologizing six ways to Sunday, but that’s to be expected.
I think the Pope was spot on — 100% accurate that there is a wing of Islam (I’d actually call it a “side” of Islam) that feels perfectly justified in raping, pillaging, and killing anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with them. Far too many Muslims feel they will rewarded by God for killing those who believe differently from them. They feel they have the perfect right to force people to convert to Islam, and even to destroy whole nations who get in the way. As a result, we are dealing every day with blood-thirsty killers like Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others.
Of course, there are peaceful Muslims too — probably even the majority (although they are certainly a silent majority). They just want to live their lives in peace, practice their religion, and not cause or get into much trouble. I respect them. But for the crazy Jihadists, not only do I have no respect, but I clearly believe that we will have to deal with them in a very strong, very … er … pointed way. Let’s use the nice innocuous term “harsh”. We’ll have to be “harsh” in our response. Simply put, they’re going to have to be put down before they kill us all.
So, what does this have to do with political correctness? Well, here it is…
I can’t believe the Pope is backpedaling. Why doesn’t he stick to his guns? Why is everyone so outraged that he called a spade a spade? Where’s the outrage from the Muslim street or the liberal press when one of our guys is getting their head sawed off by one of these fanatics? Where’s the outrage when someone says Christians are evil or the white man is always oppressive. I have to stomach that crap every day, and not only do I not blow things up in response … if I so much as say that I disagree, I’m a racist or a xenophobe or whatever.
Believe that the borders of the US need to be protected and that immigration should be orderly and controlled, your a racist.
Believe that marriage has a special place in society, your a homophobe.
Believe that murderous killers like Al-Queada do not deserve civilian laywers, and you’re a human rights violator.
Believe that there’s more to interrogating captured terrorists than “May I please have your name, rank and Jihad cell number”, and you’re torturing people.
But if you’re muslim or gay or someone who lost your husband in the war or a poor Mexican immigrant or the ACLU or the New York Times… Then you can do no wrong. You can’t be racist. You can’t be questioned. You can’t be contradicted. You can’t be profiled. And you can’t be made to feel bad or be told your wrong, because….
Political Correctness (my definition) is the 2nd most important law of the secular culture in America: You can never be made to feel bad.
(By the way, the first rule is: You can believe anything you want as long as you don’t actually think it’s true. But we’ll talk about that another time.)
And here’s the problem with the don’t-make-me-feel-bad law… It’s impossible. The only way to throw off all ability to deal with outside pressure like that is to lock yourself in the closet … forever … and even that wouldn’t work. So, the only way for the liberals (who believe this law to be real, where conservatives have much more of a “suck it up” attitude) is to focus on the people who disagree with them. And of course it doesn’t help that they believe they’re morally superior to the rest of us. I’m liberal, so I care more about people’s rights and poverty and the down-and-out and whatever else.
The conservative wants people to pull themselves up, to work hard, to not be taken care of, etc, but that makes people feel bad. So, the conservative is evil — or at least a callous unfeeling bastard.
And that’s how, in the name of freedom and equality for all, people can literally be more concerned for the well-being of the terrorists than for the well-being of the incalculable number of lives they threaten to destroy? That’s how people like John McCain can say that we’re “in danger of becoming like the enemy” or how we feel we can’t profile Arabic Muslims as potential terrorists (even though 98.3% of them are) or how professor after professor can keep his job even though he believes that the Holocaust was a myth and that we attacked ourselves on 9/11 as a ploy to get at Iraqi oil.
I think this puts all of us in a great deal of danger. We need to start taking our ques from the Pope and call things what they really are — instead of spending so much time avoiding hurting peoples’ feelings. And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of some of the ridiculous double standards. Being a white protestant male doesn’t make you any more inherently anything than being a black woman or a Muslim or a homosexual. And all the people who don’t believe that and still preach equality while pounding their fist on the podium is a hypocrite.
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