Sarah Palin opposes collective blame for monstrous crimes, unless
they're committed by Muslims.
By William Saletan
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011, at 11:55 AM ET
Sarah Palin is outraged. In a Facebook post this morning, she responds
to critics who have suggested that her target map of Democrats, which
put a crosshairs-like symbol over the district of Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords, D-Ariz., may have contributed to the Tucson shooting. Palin
writes:
After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with
concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from
people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.
President Reagan said, "We must reject the idea that every time a
law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time
to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable
for his actions." Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own.
They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not
collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who
listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both
sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully
exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies …
journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that
serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to
condemn. That is reprehensible.
That's what Palin believes. Each person is solely accountable for his
actions. Acts of monstrous criminality "begin and end with the
criminals who commit them." It's wrong to hold others of the same
nationality, ethnicity, or religion "collectively" responsible for
mass murders.
Unless, of course, you're talking about Muslims. In that case, Palin
is fine with collective blame. In fact, she's enthusiastic about it.
Palin was the first national politician to join the jihad against what
she called the "planned mosque at Ground Zero" (which wasn't a mosque
and wasn't at Ground Zero, but let's cut her some slack). In her
statement, issued six months ago on the same Facebook page where she
now denounces collective blame, she wrote this:
To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the
families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks. … I agree
with the sister of one of the 9/11 victims (and a New York resident)
who said: "This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000
people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists. I think that it is
incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a
mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they
could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened."
The last bit is a falsehood—proximity wasn't the motive for choosing
the site—but again, let's cut Palin some slack. They key phrase to
focus on is "a mosque." Palin used it twice—once in the quote, and
once in her own words—so it can't be passed off as inadvertent. Her
objection wasn't just to a specific imam or sect, much less to an
identifiable terrorist. It was to any Islamic house of worship near
Ground Zero.
Palin has never retracted this position. Indeed, she has persisted in
her opposition to any mosque near Ground Zero. Her position is that
the act of monstrous criminality on 9/11 doesn't end with the
criminals who committed it. Its stigma extends to any mosque near the
site. All Muslims should yield to that stigma. All Muslims are
responsible.
"Blood libel," as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World
Religions, is historically targeted not at a country but at a
religion. Palin's campaign against any Muslim house of worship near
Ground Zero, based on group blame for terrorism, fits that definition
more closely than does any current accusation against the Tea Party.
It didn't matter to Palin that the imam behind the "mosque" (which was
actually an Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero) had
denounced terrorism. Shortly after 9/11, the imam, Faisal Abdul Rauf,
appeared on 60 Minutes and was asked this question:
Ed Bradley: What would you say to people in this country, who, looking
at what happens in the Middle East, would associate Islam with
fanaticism, with terrorism?
Abdul Rauf: Fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam. That's
just as absurd as associating Hitler with Christianity or David Koresh
with Christianity. There are always people who will do peculiar things
and think that they are doing things in the name of their religion.
But the Quran—you know, God says in the Quran that they think that
they're doing right, but they're doing wrong.
Palin ignored the imam's denunciation of violence. Now she repudiates
the massacre in Tucson and expresses outrage that anyone would
associate her with it.
In today's Facebook post, Palin writes: "Recall how the events of 9-11
challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our
freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today." Indeed. But when
the events of 9/11 challenged our values, Palin surrendered. A decade
later, she remains willing to trade freedom, not for security, but for
"sensitivity" to her supporters' anger at Muslims generally. She's
willing to issue blood libels and sacrifice people's freedoms. She
just doesn't want the same done to her.
No comments:
Post a Comment