For the last seven years (give or take), I’ve had a slew of questions I’ve wanted to ask President Obama. I’ve never had an opportunity. Anyways (as we say in the Midwest), here’s another one:
Mr. President, you talk all the time about Islamophobia, and the danger of it, and the wrongness of it. Okay. But, in San Bernardino, a neighbor of those terrorists decided against reporting his suspicions to the authorities. The reason: He didn’t want to be accused of Islamophobia, racism, and all the rest of it.
Does that move you at all? Does that give you pause? Does that make you mutter, under your breath, “Damn”?
Okay, I’m not talking to the president anymore, I’m just blogging. Some years ago — I think it was 2002, 2003, in the early years of what we called the “War on Terror” — a colleague of mine exited a plane. Before it took off, I mean. He didn’t like what he saw — a group of men congregating and whispering.
He didn’t have enough to say something — remember that? “See something, say something” — but he did not feel comfortable remaining on the plane. He decided, for himself, that he would get off, and pay whatever he had to, for a later flight. His reasoning: “I may die, but I’m not going to die for political correctness.”
There are a lot of lousy ways to die. Political correctness must be one of the lousiest.