Xenophobia

 

Likewise.

 

 

 

There is a powerful "they" out there that openly praises the loyalty Hitler demanded of his followers and the loyalty of young men in the Chinese cultural revolution who dragged their mothers into the public square and cut off their heads. Obama and Hilary have both publicly "thanked" the man who said it, Douglas Coe, for his influence on their lives.

 

Here he is:

 

The frog is cooking, while we're busy lining up to deny the pot and defend stove.

For religious freedom, the old adage holds for me. "Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose." However, it's more nuanced than that. Do we count the wind that then flies into our eyes, even if the punch doesn't land?

The simplistic "don't be bigots you guyz" attitude overlooks the nuance involved. Groups that, in general, do not assimilate to tolerant and democratic values are among those we are expected to tolerate. I would never suggest the repression of personal liberty, but that's a legal question. I won't personally tolerate people who choose to remain part of a culture that represents violent, misogynistic, anti-intellectual, philosophically vapid, and/or traditionalist values. That being said, I think a lot of the underlying reasons for most people's disdain for certain groups such as Muslims in based in outright BS, such as the whole pandemonium over Park51, better known as the brutally misnamed "Ground Zero Mosque".

That's my two cents.