Last week, elected leaders and political figures came together in a portrait of unprecedented unity to stop International Burn the Koran Day. The security of our nation is at risk, they warned ominously. Unfortunately, in what was indeed our nation's hour of need, no one in the veritable Benetton ad of the political spectrum actually understood what it was we needed saving from.
Would terrorists have used the Koran burning to sign up new recruits? Most likely, yes-- Would the Koran burning lead to violence? Probably. But . . . so what?
Koran-burning and mosque (ahem, community center) protests may provide fodder for recruiting and violence, but so do any number of other things we do on a daily basis and we are unlikely to rethink our foreign policy paradigm as a result. Nor should we. Like it or not, we will be living with terrorism for the foreseeable future. It will ebb and flow on any number of factors, the behavior of our wack-nuts least among them. The Defense Department, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and a whole slew of other departments will deal with it. That's their job.
In the meantime, we citizens need to deal with the biggest threat to America. And contrary to popular opinion, the greatest threat to America is not what a terrorist is going to do to us, but rather what we are going to do to ourselves (either because of what they did to us in the past or what we think they might do to us in the future). In short, terrorists aren't the biggest threat to America, we are.
Consider this: We are the world's only superpower. We have 309 million citizens and control 3.79 million square miles of land. At $14.3 trillion, we have the world's largest economy. We make up two-fifths of the world's military spending. It is virtually impossible for our enemies to beat us physically. Even if by some unimaginable turn of events terrorists were able to destroy every building in the country, the citizens who remained would just move to West Texas, stick a flag in the sand while singing God Bless America at the top of their lungs and start to rebuild. We're just like that, we Americans.
So since you can't destroy the land that is America; in order to destroy us, you must kill the idea that is America - the principles that brought us together in the first place and that bind us now, even when we fall short of realizing them. Our worst enemies don't want our body. They want our soul. Like the devil, the only way they can get it is if we give it to them. Unfortunately, politicians are racing to sign the dotted line.
Over the last six weeks, politicians of both parties have abused our most cherished ideals, first by publicly bullying Muslims for wanting to pray in an 'insensitive' location and then by attacking a preacher for burning a book he finds offensive. On the surface, our reaction to these acts seems reasonable. Why not move a few blocks North? Why not shut down the rants of a single preacher? Is preventing the 'free exercise' of religion and speech to a small number of Muslims and one crazy man really that consequential? Of course not. However, our collective willingness to betray our founding principles because someone's feelings might get hurt or because people across the ocean may not like it is profoundly consequential. Even in our darkest days - days of injustice and hypocrisy- our founding principles have provided the architecture for our endurance. They are today, as they were at our founding, who we are.
When we speak of security it is essential that we understand what it is we seek to secure. If it is our values that bind us, then it is our values that we must protect above all else. Is an America where Muslims are bullied and their houses of worship banished really America? Is an America where the Secretary of Defense calls a private citizen to stop him from burning a book on private property still the land of the free?
Our nation can be 'indivisible' only if we remain committed to the idea that our differences - whatever they may be - are less important than our shared ideals. By forfeiting these principles - and so easily - we accomplish what no terrorist ever could.
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Indeed, what offended me the most about the preacher was that he was claiming the protection of the First Amendment while criticizing another religion, thus speaking out against religious freedom, also protected by the First Amendment. It was the ultimate irony. He might as well have been burning the Bill of Rights!
As to the mosque, I agree it was offensive to see the politicians pandering to the wackos who don't seem to understand that our country was built on both religious freedom and property rights, and they want to deny both to Muslims! In my mind, the Newt Gingriches of the world were insulting our Constitution. And no one even mentioned that the so-called mosque was actually a community center with prayer rooms for Jews and Christians as well, and was really not that close to ground zero anyway (3 blocks is a long way in NYC!). It was all a hullabaloo about nothing. The politicians that pander to wackos on such issues should be ASHAMED of themselves! Have they all forgotten the fundamental liberties our country was founded on?
This includes state censorship - people investigated by the FBI and the bomb squad for threats and hate crimes for leaving burnt Korans on sidewalks or driveways - Terry Jones to be billed $200,000 by police for security against counter-protesters of a cancelled rally.
But perhaps most appalling of all is the demonstration for all to see that every protester has an owner: that internet providers cancel the web site, that the protesters are all fired from their jobs, that the insurance company can pull your coverage simply because you plan a protest, and then the bank calls in the mortgage and you lose the property.
Even a Supreme Court Justice seemed to give the impression that annoying a terrorist is like "shouting fire in a crowded theater" - suggesting it is the prerogative of terrorists to draw the moral boundaries that the courts will enforce in the name of the constitution! If we do not strengthen the support of freedom of expression, we may see the time when radicals of all varieties find it no more unsafe to express themselves with bombs than with public protests - when a movement that does not express itself by acts of terrorism is viewed as meaningless or insincere.
Yet other threats emanating from inside the U.S. not mentioned by Erica here include our dysfunctional government, our general (including economic) decline, and our denying climate change. Then there are external threats including those to our security. While moving the Islamic Center would encroach on our constitutional freedom of religion, the quite predictable repercussions it would have in the Muslim world are more serious. While burning the Koran (or any book) is intrinsically abhorrent, its negative repercussions within the Muslim world are also serious. As General Petraeus pointed out, these endanger our troops (which wouldn’t be the case, as I would want, if the troops weren’t in Islamic lands).
Then there is Israel: While advocating that the U.S. actively support bringing about a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinians conflict, I do so primarily out of my love for the Israeli people and my caring for the Palestinians, the latter based in part of having myself been a refugee. But the recognition by the U.S. administration that the continuation of the conflict is a threat to U.S. security appears to me most fortunate in that it could make the difference in resolving the conflict. Acts within the U.S. invalidating Muslim perceptions detract from bringing about a resolution to the conflict. For example, Turkey is needed as part of the solution, not as part of the problem.