(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
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[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Thursday, June 20, 2002
Joshua TreviƱo has responded (June 17) to me responding to him, to which I will (briefly) respond. (Is the Blogosphere the Forum Romanum, or a hall of mirrors? We disport, you decide.)
In the previous edition, Joshua cited three American Muslim belligerents, and has now added more (along with a few British ringers), to say something about Islamic Westerners -- I'm still not sure what, as his argument is larded with demurrers ("I've no doubt that one can be Muslim and American"), but it still sounds bad. For example, from his follow-up:
"It's unfortunate but true that alone among immigrant and minority communities, it is the Muslims of the West who tolerate and often abet prominent strains of hostility toward their host cultures."
Here's an account of a party held in Chicago three years back, when Clinton pardoned some Puerto Rican terrorists who had helped blow up some Americans (their fellow Americans, one might say) in the 1970s:
"Last night, several hundred members of Chicago's Puerto Rican community celebrated the release of the prisoners with music and speeches before ex-prisoner Ricardo Jimenez took the stage to wild cheers. Speaking in Spanish, Jimenez called for a 'Puerto Rico libre' and said he would not stop the fight until Oscar Lopez Rivera and the other prisoners are free."
A lot of people, regrettably, feel some measure of cultural sympathy for terrorist movements within their own countries. But I don't recall anyone suggesting that selected Puerto Rican nationalists be detained without charges lest we get a repeat of the Truman shootout. Charging, trying, and jailing the perpetrators seemed to work fine.
It's no defense of hostile Islamic fundamentalism to say that their stateside sympathizers have the right to believe what they will, and say what they will, and that the government should only lock them up for actual crimes. That's long been America's secret weapon against totalitarian ideas -- kill 'em with Constitutionalism. I still think it could work.