Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and LIBERAL author comments on the hijackers responsible for the September 11 attacks in "Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After 911."
...
on the "haters.."
"They detest the freedom, the pluralism, the religious toleration, the secularism, the gender equality, the democracy, the faith, the free markets, and the multiethnicity with which we have built our society, and which we we urge others to emulate."
Okay. We have no sense of reality on planet America...
Freedom: Our prisons are overflowing with "non-violent drug offenders" even though it is widely conceded that prevention and treatement programs are FAR more effective than incarceration (and far less expensive) for these victimless crimes. And how many democracy-crushing authoritarian regimes has the U.S. funded in the past fifty years? How many are we funding right now? Take a look.
Religious toleration: Our country has never been based on that premise... the Puritans were killing Quakers and Antinomians since these holy Pilgrims arrived... Take a close look at today. Ask an evangelical Christian why they support Israeli aggression against Palestinians. Bombing people out of the Christian "Holy Land" is not my idea of religious toleration.
Secularism: I need to puke.
Gender Equality: Ladies; just ask your male co-workers what they are paid (for doing the same job as you). You'll get a taste of America's brilliant gender equality. Take a look at the "representative" proportion of women in high office here...
Democracy: Check Freedom House's United States ranking on democracy.... The U.S. is far from number one.
The faith: Let's not go there... He is wrong for various reasons... but let's not go there... I'll be typing for an hour...
Free Markets: If you think that subsidizing U.S. businesses with billions of OUR tax dollars and then forcing devoloping economies to compete is "free trade" then yeah; we practice free trade.
Multiethnicity: Give me a break. Our country is founded on genocide and slavery... The terrorists are angry at our strides toward multiethnicity?... Oh, wait! Now we have affirmative action! Now we truely embrace brown people!
Remember: this is the "liberal" media.
Nevertheless... there is an easy way to test Friedman's theory... Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden rank higher on freedom, democracy, gender equality, secularism, and free markets... why do these countries not fear terrorism? Could it be that our aggression in the region, a line of reasoning Friedman rejects, is to blame for Arab anger (in fact world anger)at the U.S. government?
What's more, Friedman would have us believe that the huge spike in Al-Queda recruitment following the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq was NOT due to our aggression in the area. His argument assumes that America must have suddenly become more magnificent since it is our brilliance that is at the root of all anti-American sentiment in the Middle East.
I'm gonna go cry now.
Jan 29, 2006 @ 02:55:13
