Conservatives Don't Get America

Conservatives like Herman Cain, who wants to prevent mosques from being built in the United States, and the right-wing Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, who murdered dozens of people last weekend, are afraid free and open societies like America and Norway will be invaded by Muslims who will institute Sharia law.

Conservatives just don't seem to get how America works and what makes it a great country. As immigrants come here the vast majority quickly comes to appreciate the freedom to live their lives as they choose. Sure, some first-generation sticks in the mud will never change, and there will always be some fruitcakes who want to revert to the Middle Ages.

But over time the children -- and especially the daughters -- of even the most conservative Muslims will become disillusioned with the oppression of women, the crazy dress codes, the hatred, and they'll join the American mainstream. They'll see the lives that the rest of us live and they'll want that too. Unless, of course, we treat them like animals, and make them feel hated and hunted.

Furthermore, all Islamic sects are not the same -- the Sunni and Shia sects are constantly battling it out. But more importantly, Turkish Islam is very different from Saudi Islam. The majority of Turks are Muslims, but the government is secular and Sharia is not the law of the land. American Islam will be more like Turkey's than Pakistan's.

For generations people like Cain have worried about the influence of new minorities. The same sentiments were held against former slaves, Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Chinese, Japanese, Hispanics and on and on. And religion has always been touchy -- Jews certainly understand this, and as recently as 1960 people seriously questioned whether a Catholic could be president and hold the United States' interests above those of the Vatican.

But over time those minority ethnicities and religions have been stirred into the melting pot of America. Their children have ultimately become full-fledged Americans, learned English and forgotten their parents' native tongues. And at the same time they've brought new things that the rest of us have come to accept as normal: pizza, Kung Pao chicken, sushi, reggae, hip-hop, jazz, and on and on.

The United States is a liberal democracy, something that even conservatives like George Bush and Dick Cheney think is a good thing -- they invaded Iraq to create a liberal democracy in the Middle East. Why? History tells us that conservative regimes are ultimately controlling and repressive. They don't tolerate differences and change, and as they gain more and more power anyone who strays from the prescribed orthodoxy is harshly punished. These escalate into internecine conflicts that cause society to splinter and disintegrate.

Freedom and tolerance of differences are the strengths of our society. Yes, these freedoms pose some risks. There will be a few bad Muslim apples who kill their fellow Americans, just as there have been bad Christian apples like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph who killed and maimed hundreds of their fellow citizens.

But conservatives should understand and accept those risks. They're the ones who believe everyone should own a gun, and if a few innocent bystanders get killed when someone is exercising their second amendment rights, well that's the price of freedom.

Why does Herman Cain put more stock in the second amendment than the first? The first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.*

Herman Cain wants to prevent Muslims from peaceably assembling for the purposes of religious worship. Does Cain have so little faith in the strength of our way of life and our Constitution that he has to trash it in order to protect it? Does he really believe that there could ever be enough Muslims in this country to totally overwhelm the rest of us, enough to amend the Constitution and establish Sharia law, or to overthrow our government by force of arms? Or is he just parroting Republican talking points to cynically exploit the fear people feel after 20 years of terrorism at the hands of Al Qaeda?

Anders Breivik's fears over immigration and multiculturalism are almost understandable. He comes from an ethnically homogeneous country where for centuries almost everyone belonged to the same church. There's no history of immigration and the melting pot in Norway. But Herman Cain should know better than this, being a black man whose ancestors may well have been enslaved by his fellow men.

Yet Cain is tuned to the same crazy radio station that broadcasts intolerance and hate that Breivik is. The difference is that Cain has the volume turned up half way, whereas Breivik has it all the way up to 11.

*And weaseling out of the first amendment by saying it's okay for the states to deny those rights is wrong on legal, practical, moral and ethical reasons, and is the height of hypocrisy.