In
practically his first outing as
secretary of state abroad, John Kerry made some remarkable statements
in a meeting with young Germans. The main thing being widely quoted is
this:
“In America, you have a right to be stupid if you want to be,” he said. “And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that.
Now, I think that’s a virtue. I think that’s something worth fighting for.”
Of
course, there’s a right to be stupid in America! Indeed, just this week
it's been expanded into having a right to be simultaneously stupid and
secretary of defense!
To
be fair, Kerry's statement was in the context of defending, albeit
not very well, freedom of speech in America. (Kerry was obviously
referencing President Barack Obama’s UN speech in his own talking
points.) How Kerry defends it is what's scary and dysfunctional.
He
was basically saying: Yeah, we know that all these dumb people who
don’t agree with us are wrong but we let them talk anyway because it
works out okay in the end since nobody listens to them anyway. While he
used the words “virtue” and “worth fighting for” those sentiments seem
to be clumped onto the end for form’s sake. Kerry certainly doesn't
say--or understand--that people have rights and government has limits.
Instead, he talks as if
the ruling elite tolerates such fools because it's so nice.
That
is remarkably different from a more traditional defense of American
liberty like: We have seen how in a free market place of ideas the best
standpoints generally triumph, people are happier, and prosperity
ensues. Or, we believe that people are endowed with rights by their
creator and no one can or should take them away.
Now
that standpoint is really “something worth fighting for” and Americans
in the institution now run by Chuck Hagel have been doing so for a
couple of centuries. No American goes into battle to defend the right to
be stupid.
Oh, wait! Kerry apparently does think so since, as he put it, showing
his superior grasp of the English language: “You know, education, if
you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
So,
you have the right to be stupid but watch out because if you are you
might end up in the armed forces fighting to defend the right to be
stupid!
In
contrast to a proper approach, Kerry makes the American system sound
like letting the deranged walk the streets as homeless people, babbling
incoherently
but doing little harm. Sure, let them cling to their guns and religion
while we smart people make all the decisions. He’s merely turning around
a traditional left-wing critique of democracy that comes from Herbert
Marcuse or Noam Chomsky, of “repressive tolerance.”
And
that seems to be what Kerry and Obama really believe. Ironically, they
are the modern-day equivalent of what used to be called right-wing
reactionaries ruling a patriarchal society that consists of aristocrats
and peasants.
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Another
feature of Kerry’s performance was displaying the Obama Administration
propensity for apologizing. The question
Kerry was answering came from a young German Muslim who merely asked
him about his views on Islam. There was no criticism of the United
States. It was an invitation to go into a riff about America as a great,
tolerant place not to cringe and insist that outside of stupid people
the United States America isn’t horribly “Islamophobic.”
Implied
in Kerry’s response was the video that supposedly inspired the Benghazi
attack. As you know, this claim is either discredited or, in the words
of Kerry’s predecessor, supposedly doesn’t matter. On the verge of his
visit to the Middle East, repeating the false notes of the new Obama era
national
anthem—America the Guilty—is not a good idea.
Kerry added that he’s reading a book entitled No God but God by
Reza Aslan, which he gushingly praises and accepts as his source on
Islam. There are, of course, many books on Islam and Kerry is free to
read whatever he wants. Yet the choice of this particular one is also
revealing.
What
Aslan says in his book fits perfectly with Obama’s Cairo and other
speeches, so much so that one wonders if Obama recommended it to him.
What’s interesting, though, is that Aslan himself is an Iranian-American
who seems to act like a radical Islamist.
Rather
than respond with documented arguments to those who disagree with his
views, Aslan has been abusive to anyone going beyond a wonderful
religion of peace characterization of contemporary Islam. Perhaps most
disturbing, he is a board member of the National Iranian American
Council, for all practical purposes
the lobbying group in America for Iran’s regime.
One
can say this last fact knowing that the organization’s leader, Trita
Parsi, has just lost a law suit against a researcher who made the above
accusation.
Aslan
also consistently claims that there is a tidal wave of hatred against
Muslims in America, using them as scapegoats for the bad economic
situation. Have you noticed any such thing? He also advocates in tweets that
people vandalize legal American Freedom Defense Initiative signs in the
New York subway. “Hey New York! How many racist ads are left unscathed?
Get busy.”
This
doesn’t accord with what Kerry said in his talk in Germany: “….Our
country is incredibly tolerant of people of all walks of life and
different philosophies and
religions.”
But
Aslan clearly doesn’t understand that at all. Yet if he’s correct about
Islam than shouldn’t he amend his own behavior? Perhaps, however, his
performances reflect something about the accuracy of what he writes. And
if his Islam is so moderate then why doesn’t he condemn—rather than
lobby for—Iran’s regime?
A
key factor in
his approach is to blame any problem with the perception of Islam in
the West to Western bigotry and ignorance. Why, then, isn’t there a lot
of nasty stuff going on regarding Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, the
Jains, or various other religions?
Any
honest approach, no matter how supportive or apologetic for Islam, must
acknowledge that certain political events have a relationship to this
factor of fear and dislike. Once the issue of terrorism, radical
ideology, and different interpretations of Islam (including those of
such people as Usama bin Ladin and Ruhollah Khomeini) is discussed,
though, Aslan would have to make counter-arguments. And to do that he
would have to admit that there are certain statements in Islamic texts
and events in Islam’s history that helped lead to these outcomes.
Aslan has said that
"if you know one Muslim, it cuts in half the negativity rating you have
toward Islam.” Makes sense. But that depends on who that "one Muslim"
is. The main threat to Islam's reputation is not evil "Islamophobes" but
radical or terrorist Muslims and the powerful ideology
they have unleashed that runs the lives of several hundred million
people, threatens many millions more, and has killed a lot of Americans.
How
is Aslan’s idealized, apologetic, dishonest view going to help a U.S.
secretary of state facing radical states driven by a passionately felt
view that they are implementing proper Islam and that if you disagree
they will kill you, not just deface their signs in New York subways?
Option A: Kerry lectures the Muslim Brotherhood on how it doesn’t understand Islam properly and tells them to read Aslan.
Option
B: Kerry thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups are really
moderate precisely because they are so eager to practice the religion
of peace portrayed by Aslan.
Pretending
there’s no elephant in the world doesn’t protect anyone from getting
trampled. In fact, that makes it far more likely that people will get
trampled.
Barry
Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International
Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
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