Guillaume Morand is my hero.
It seems that on Nov 29 of this year 57% of the brave voters of Switzerland voted to ban the building of minarets in their country. At first I thought, well Switzerland, a progressive nation that granted women the right to vote in 1971. Switzerland, a valiant nation that turned away tens of thousands of civilian Jewish refugees during World War II. Switzerland, a noble nation that finally reached a settlement with survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants to allow access to dormant accounts in Swiss banks in 2000.
My favorite aspect of the efforts of the Swiss banks to deny the heirs of victims of the Holocaust access to their family bank accounts is the banks’ request for death certificates. I understand about Teutonic efficiency, but I have trouble imagining guards stacking up death certificates next to bodies at Auschwitz or Treblinka. Evidently the Swiss had no such trouble.
In an interesting sidebar, banning the construction of minarets was too much for even the Vatican. The Vatican! Yes the Vatican issued a strong and unequivocal statement condemning the Swiss vote.
There is, however, much support around the world for the Swiss position. There are people who oppose construction of entire mosques in cities throughout Europe and North America. Some of these, I regret to say, are people of my acquaintance who have patiently explained to me that the construction of mosques in European and North American cities is a threat to “western values.” Western values like religious pluralism? Or, these same people posit, why should we allow mosques in our cities when Islamist states like Iran and Saudi Arabia won’t allow the construction of churches and synagogues? To which I respond so these “western values” demand that we embrace the lowest standards of the most repressive dictatorial states as our own? Rousseau and Jefferson would be so proud.
The hate-o-sphere is currently a-flame about an even more heinous affront to “western values” being perpetrated by a group of Muslims right here in the good ole U. S. of A. Those shameless Islamists are building a mosque and cultural center in a former Burlington Coat Factory two blocks from Ground Zero. I can only assume that the haters are in such a lather because they don’t know where else to go for discount outerwear in lower Manhattan.
I cannot imagine a more powerful and appropriate gesture of reconciliation and healing. Placing that facility on that site makes the clear and necessary statement that the monstrous thugs who perpetrated the attack on the World Trade Center no more represented the teaching or values of Islam than the Real IRA members responsible for the Omagh bombing represented the teaching or values of Roman Catholicism. A mosque two blocks from Ground Zero expresses simply and succinctly the highest aspirations of universal human values.
My hero, Guillaume Morand, exemplifies the highest standard of universal human values, individual division. M. Morand owns a chain of shoe stores in Bussigny, Switzerland. When his fellow citizens voted to ban the construction of minarets, M. Morand, who is not himself a Muslim, built a minaret over one of his warehouses in protest of the vote.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke
M. Morand is a good man. M. Morand saw evil and did something. M. Morand is my hero.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
And the dam breaks ...
In remarks today at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, our president said: “The time for talk is over …”
When I read that I thought dear God, is he resigning? What else does he have to offer? No more talk, no more administration. What else have we been given in eleven months? Well, troops of course, and back pedaling.
And spectacularly poor judgment. When the history of the Obama administration is writ, let it be writ large that executive privilege was claimed for the White House Social Secretary. Yes, in the view of the Obama administration, the White House Social Secretary provides policy advice to the president of such sensitivity and import that the functioning of the executive branch would be compromised if she answered a congressional subpoena.
I have been so dispirited by the ongoing saga of health care “reform” legislation that I haven’t been able to write about it in some time. (I would heartily commend Howard Dean’s op ed in yesterday’s Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601906.html?sub=AR).
I have to concede that President Obama is far from the only cowardly, craven villain in this fiasco. Harry Reid and Max “Find My Girlfriend a Job” Baucus have also helped redefine “compromise” as “total surrender.” And Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe lead the list of those attempting to take the legislation hostage over a single issue. Clearly the greater good is only greater under limited circumstances and the motto of the United States Senate is “My Way or the Highway.” I must reserve my particular utmost personal contempt for Joe Lieberman, a narcissistic boor who wouldn’t recognize the good of the nation if it walked up to him wearing a badge reading “Hello, My Name Is: The Good of The Nation.”
Remember children, if a liberal stands up for a matter of principle, he or she is being shrill, obstructionist and, most horrifyingly of all, P.C. If someone on the right follows the same course, he or she is being stalwart, courageous and patriotic.
Although I do say all that with a touch of envy. I wish that someone, anyone, on the left would be as resolute in standing up for a Medicare buy-in, or a woman's right to choose, or a public option, or no coverage caps ...
This whole sorry spectacle puts me in mind of the old folk tale “Stone Soup.” The peddler comes to a village with a pot and some stones. He builds a fire by the well and adds water to his stones. Curious villagers ask what he is doing and he says. “making stone soup.” Their curiosity is piqued and over time he gets them to contribute carrots and onions and potatoes and chicken and a host of other ingredients until the villagers agree that stone soup is the best dish they have ever tasted.
The Senate had the opportunity to craft legislation that started pretty close to finished stone soup. Instead the Senate has spent the last few months picking out the chicken and the carrots and the onions and all the other ingredients that might make it savory or nutritious until all that Harry Reid is going to have to invoke cloture to get us is a pot of boiling water and some rocks.
It’s not right and it’s not enough.
But don't bother calling or writing your senators, Their minds are already made up and your voice is so much inconsequential background noise.
When I read that I thought dear God, is he resigning? What else does he have to offer? No more talk, no more administration. What else have we been given in eleven months? Well, troops of course, and back pedaling.
And spectacularly poor judgment. When the history of the Obama administration is writ, let it be writ large that executive privilege was claimed for the White House Social Secretary. Yes, in the view of the Obama administration, the White House Social Secretary provides policy advice to the president of such sensitivity and import that the functioning of the executive branch would be compromised if she answered a congressional subpoena.
I have been so dispirited by the ongoing saga of health care “reform” legislation that I haven’t been able to write about it in some time. (I would heartily commend Howard Dean’s op ed in yesterday’s Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601906.html?sub=AR).
I have to concede that President Obama is far from the only cowardly, craven villain in this fiasco. Harry Reid and Max “Find My Girlfriend a Job” Baucus have also helped redefine “compromise” as “total surrender.” And Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe lead the list of those attempting to take the legislation hostage over a single issue. Clearly the greater good is only greater under limited circumstances and the motto of the United States Senate is “My Way or the Highway.” I must reserve my particular utmost personal contempt for Joe Lieberman, a narcissistic boor who wouldn’t recognize the good of the nation if it walked up to him wearing a badge reading “Hello, My Name Is: The Good of The Nation.”
Remember children, if a liberal stands up for a matter of principle, he or she is being shrill, obstructionist and, most horrifyingly of all, P.C. If someone on the right follows the same course, he or she is being stalwart, courageous and patriotic.
Although I do say all that with a touch of envy. I wish that someone, anyone, on the left would be as resolute in standing up for a Medicare buy-in, or a woman's right to choose, or a public option, or no coverage caps ...
This whole sorry spectacle puts me in mind of the old folk tale “Stone Soup.” The peddler comes to a village with a pot and some stones. He builds a fire by the well and adds water to his stones. Curious villagers ask what he is doing and he says. “making stone soup.” Their curiosity is piqued and over time he gets them to contribute carrots and onions and potatoes and chicken and a host of other ingredients until the villagers agree that stone soup is the best dish they have ever tasted.
The Senate had the opportunity to craft legislation that started pretty close to finished stone soup. Instead the Senate has spent the last few months picking out the chicken and the carrots and the onions and all the other ingredients that might make it savory or nutritious until all that Harry Reid is going to have to invoke cloture to get us is a pot of boiling water and some rocks.
It’s not right and it’s not enough.
But don't bother calling or writing your senators, Their minds are already made up and your voice is so much inconsequential background noise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
