and this picture:
have in common?
Both of them represent the failure of our culture, our national identity, to deal with a clear and present danger. The top image is an elevation of the Islamic center and mosque proposed to be built in New York City, two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center disaster. The mosque would be on the upper two floors of this sixteen story monstrosity so that it would overlook Ground Zero. The second image occurred in New York at a baseball game between the Mets and the Arizona Diamondbacks, where two men ran onto the field waving Mexican flags to protest the Arizona law.
Both of these show a callous disregard, and indeed, a blatant stick-in-your-eye towards decent everyday Americans. Now before you liberals start foaming multi-culturally at the mouth and telling me how insensitive I am, let's lay down some facts.
1. I am not opposed to building mosques...or temples, or synagogues, or cathedrals. However, I would be just as opposed to the construction of a Roman Catholic church towering over the killing chambers of Auschwitz as I am to building this mosque in New York City. It would be culturally insensitive (invasive?) , and the Catholics were not even the executioners of Hitler's "Final Solution." In point of fact, there have been some misunderstandings between Catholics and Jews at Auschwitz. A few nuns opened a convent near the grounds in 1984 to pray for the souls of the dead and beg God for forgiveness. Though their intent was pure, it was insensitive and an inappropriate place. In 1987, after dialogue with Jewish groups, Pope John Paul II ordered the nuns to move to another convent.
2. I don't hate Mexicans, or Guatemalans, or Liberians, Haitians, Kenyans, Latvians etc. etc. Don't label my opposition to what amounts to an invasion with the dreaded "r" word. I am sick and tired of liberals running around like the "Night of the Living Dead" pointing their crooked fingers and screaming "RACIST!" I am very much in favor of a robust immigration policy along the lines of what we once had with the Bracero Program from 1942-1964. I have no problem with immigrants from any part of the world that want to come to this country to ply their trade, craft or skills and to make a better life for themselves and their families by becoming proud American citizens. But one of the bargains of immigration must be assimilation. You must learn our language and customs so you can get ahead. Running across an American baseball field waving a Mexican flag is not assimilation...it is asinine and insulting, but we should not be surprised.
Thomas Sowell once said that "What 'multiculturalism' boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture - and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.'" I submit the above two photos as Exhibits A and B. How would the Saudis like a nice Anglican cathedral to be built within two blocks of the Ka'aba in Mecca? Especially, if it was undertaken by the "Acre Initiative," an Episcopalian group bent on "fostering understanding between Muslims and Christians?" The cathedral would be called "Acre House," to avoid offending the locals. Acre, you may recall was the site in 1192 of the victory of Richard the Lionheart over the Islamists during the Third Crusade. What might the difference be between "Acre House" and "Cordoba House?"
For starters, you will never see Acre House get built. Our ambitious Anglicans would be greeted with this:
That's right "obligatory for non muslims." In a country where conversion from Islam brings the death penalty, the Acre House project is (pardon me) dead on arrival. We are the ones who must be culturally "sensitive" and "expansive," while turning a total blind eye to their hatred and bigotry. The supporters of the "Cordoba House" (the Cordoba Caliphate represented the high-watermark of Muslim dominance in Spain from 756-1031...a totally innocent coincidence no doubt!) say they want to foster "understanding between Muslims and non-muslims." Perhaps a good place to start that understanding would be to build the center some place else.
Let's go south of the border. Let's say we're attending a nice futbol match in Aztec Stadium and we decide that Mexican restrictions of foreigners buying coastal land in Mexico are not fair! To show our love for Mexico and our desire for beachfront property in Cozumel, we decide to streak across the field waving the Stars and Stripes! Makes sense doesn't it? Of course not, but again, we are the ones who must be culturally "sensitive" and "expansive."
This is what multiculturalism begets. Any common sense approach such as the old "your rights end when your fist touches my nose," goes out the window.
America has a unique burden. All nations are founded in conquest, war, revolution and the like, but none carry the burden of the American experience. Our founding was out in the open, not hidden in the shrouded mists of a distant past with only tattered illegible scrolls to tell the tale. Our conquest of indigenous peoples is well documented. We carry the added weight on our shoulders of having imported millions against their will to work our fields. The curse of slavery was from our earliest days the holding of the wolf by the ears, as Jefferson said: "you don't like it very much, but you dare not let him go." But unlike other nations so founded, or empires expanded - we could look at the expansion of the Muslim caliphate across North Africa and into Spain, for example - we added a moral element that has truly made us stick out. In 1776, our founders brought the concept of justice from the Judaic tradition and merged it with the compassion and recognition of individual worth from the Christian tradition and presented to the world a bold idea: that "all men were created equal, and that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The paradox of an expansive nation sworn to protect the equality of all has been our special burden ever since. And, as Paul Johnson points out in his masterpiece "The History of the American People," placed the task before us to form a "society dedicated to justice and fairness." We have fought a bloody Civil War because of this paradox and in the conversion of a small piece of farmland in Gettysburg to a national cemetery, we renewed our vows to "the unfinished work which they who have fought here have so nobly advanced."
It is this paradox that keeps us constantly looking over our shoulder and asking ourselves: "have we done enough?" It has bred the civil rights movement and affirmative action, and it has led to an immigration policy that is based more on fear of not being considered inclusive enough than rational need or strategic interest. And it is this policy that our enemies, foreign and domestic, boldly exploit...it is the petard upon which multiculturalism is hoisted.
A society of laws and justice is not in a fair fight when it comes up against one with neither. We know, for example, that Al Qaeda operatives have been trained to demand their legal rights when captured. The Taliban waging guerrilla warfare on our soldiers in Afghanistan don't distinguish between combatant and civilian and they certainly don't give a lick about "Rules of Engagement." The interests behind the Cordoba House cynically know they can use our own zoning laws against us to build in this location and then cry "racism" and "bigotry" if there is opposition. The real mission behind Cordoba House, and they are doing a poor job of it in their founding, is to put a nice "smiley face" on Islam and expand their numbers in this country as they have done in Europe. Here is the problem: a religion that places women only slightly above farm animals and that views non-believers as inferior doesn't play well with the concept of "all men are created equal." Does our national paradox, therefore, insist that we commit cultural suicide by allowing more of them in? I think not.
In the same vein, the notion that our border is nothing but a concept drawn in the sands of the Arizona desert is reinforced by legions of illegal aliens screaming "racism" and "bigotry" at the first attempts to actually put some order to the influx of illegals streaming across the southern frontier. A society cannot maintain its system of laws and justice if it is being overrun by citizens from another land that care not for the basic norms of the country they are invading. No, not ALL people crossing the border are evil banditi, but there are enough of them to cause grave concern. We see it in the gang populations in almost all our major cities, we see it in the free-for-all gun battles in Northern Mexico, and we see it in the abductions and murders of our own citizens. Some, particularly on the left, cynically see this invasion as a fresh source of future votes. Others, on the right, see an unending source of cheap labor. Both are wrong, and the burden of our history does not mean we should commit cultural suicide here either.
We stand at a crossroads as a culture and a nation. The special burden of our founding cannot survive the multi-front assault we are under. If we fail, if we can no longer be the "City on the Hill," a beacon of idealistic hope for all, the world will be the lesser for it. We cherish our freedoms in this country and defend individual rights, but we also know there are limits: you can't cry "fire" in a crowded theater. There comes a time to stand for the greater good. That time is now - we must once again take pride in our special burden and renew the commitment to the notion that "all men are created equal." We invite all immigrants willing to accept our laws and culture to come and join that mission. We disinvite those that would tear it down to build up their own cultures that are antithetical to ours.
Stop the mosque. If the Cordoba Initiative wants to have a dialogue with Islam and other faiths, let it do so from Brooklyn. And let us accept the challenge to enter into that dialogue so that they understand that what they preach doesn't sit well with a culture and society dedicated to individual freedoms and rights.
Seal the border. If any person wants to immigrate to the United States and join our special mission, let them demonstrate that they are committed to that by first entering the country through proper channels.
Let us not commit cultural seppuku because we have been shamed into it!
Rumble on!