It's All Relative

When I was growing up it was generally taught that America was the best country in the world. We are the world's oldest and most successful democracy with freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. We have a working separation of powers between the different branches of government. Our model as a melting pot successfully integrated people from nations that had warred on each other for centuries.

In the late 1960s, during the Viet Nam war things changed. Cultural relativism came in. America's faults were suddenly discovered and magnified.

By the time my daughter was in grade school they were teaching that the relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII was the same as the Holocaust. Never mind that we gave our prisoners food, shelter, and weekend passes while the Nazis starved and gassed the Jews.

In 1992 we hammered over the head with stories about how good the Indians were compared with the rapacious western civilization that displaced them.

We are constantly reminded that several signatories to the Declaration of Independence owned slaves.

American colonialism is the root of all of the world's ills, even in former European colonies.

And of course, there is the Bush = Hitler mantra of the far left.

The reason I brought this up is a column by Andrew Barnes printed in the July 23 Columbus Dispatch. Barnes was writing about religion. He started with his own Christian upbringing and contrasted that with today's Christians (a standard rhetorical trick). He then went on to complain that people who argue for policy changes based on religious morality are not open to compromises like normal people.

Then he said that Christians who desire social change are exactly the same as violent Islamic terrorists, only their methods are different.

Funny, I thought that only Republicans and Sith Lords dealt in black and white. What happened to nuance? Did Barnes really mean to equate organized religion's support for civil rights with the Taliban?

Regardless, it's not what they want that is the problem. Constitutional freedoms allow for Christians to argue against abortion and for Moslems to argue for the establishment of Sharia as long as they follow the proper forms. It's when you start blowing people up that you have crossed the line.