Wretchard said:
Political correctness may have the long term effect not of shielding Muslims from suspicion but making it universal.
I’ve been saying this for some time. The American people are (largely) not suicidal, and will demand to know who is responsible, and they will therefore seek out the variable with the highest degree of correlation. But if some of the variables are hidden by law, they’ll use the (less precise) visible ones: race, ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin. Every Leftist and Imam professes to be afraid that Ethnic Profiling or Religious Profiling is coming, but if they continue to prevent the rest of American from engaging in Ideological Profiling, then Ethnic Profiling is what we’re going to get. Lots of innocents will be harmed, but Americans will feel safer and think “It’s the best we could do in a bad situation.”
And this is apiece with many other Leftist policies. They continue to believe that Man’s nature can be altered by passing a law, and that unintended consequences are always surprising. They refuse to accept that Supply & Demand will always meet each other, and pass market-distorting laws providing tariffs, subsidies, and government guarantees against loss, and then profess surprise when the market fails. They refuse to accept that taxes are money taken from the private sector, and express puzzlement when higher tax rates (and government borrowing) result in reduced hiring and consumption. They refuse to accept that the essence of economic growth is the innovative destruction of old (less efficient) labor practices, and then stare like a deer in headlights when union work rules and legislated employment relationships causes Michigan’s economy to implode. They insist that more regulation is better than less, and costs be damned; and then wonder why IPO activity and new energy development drops off 80%.
I wouldn’t mind their persistent delusions so much if they abstained from voting. But alas, they don’t, and they force us all to live more dangerous lives.
Anwar al-Awlaki said:
Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.
Mr. al-Awlaki points to something very critical: One cannot serve two masters indefinitely. Eventually the two symbols you claim to owe allegiance to will come into conflict, and then your TRUE loyalties will be revealed. Maybe in a world where the United States was involved in wars in Latin America instead of the Ummah Maj. Hasan could have continued to serve without our knowing of his conflicts; and different soldiers (now serving more or less loyally in Iraq and Afghanistan) would have put on the red headband and made their own personal war on the unarmed soldiers preparing to deploy. “Che es grande!”
Do we need loyalty tests? That can get out of hand. But disloyalty is already getting out of hand. The American people will demand an answer, and if government cannot provide one then they may take matters into their own hands. Hayek thought that disunity would create demand for a “Strong Leader”, but that is not the American way. Instead of the road to Serfdom, do social conditions in the United States mean that the same set of facts seen in Europe might instead produce a road to Anarchy? And will our system of Courts and civil liberties be saved for anyone?
