Cooperate or Die!

Cooperate or die! This is the new rallying cry I hear from the Right over and over again as they implore the Muslims among us to do what nobody else can seem to do: get the terrorists to quit attacking! The latest outrage was written by Hal Lindsey who says:

The time is late. The "jihadist timetable" is counting down toward a major attack. Help your fellow Americans stop them before a catastrophe strikes us all and ignites an unstoppable holocaust.

Imagine that: an unstoppable holocaust. Who is he talking about killing? Muslims. Somehow if a fringe group of radical Muslims decides to attack us again we'll have no choice but to wipe 'em all out.


Let me digress for a moment, though, and point out something truly American about this argument. Notice how the holocaust would be "unstoppable"? It fits with a pattern of American abuse of power and excess in that when we committ atrocities it is unavoidable, but always made with good intentions. According to Lindsay we might adopt a "final solution" for our Arab problem but will be unavoidable due to peaceful Muslims not helping us root out the bad guys.

Earlier in the piece, Lindsay warns:

Cooperate with legal authorities before it is too late to plead your civil rights.

Not very American is it? Remember we used to believe that our that humans were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, but not anymore. Now those rights come with a price-tag: obedience and cooperation.

Through all of the moaning and groaning I get the sense that these attacks appear from some invisible matrix that nobody fully understands. Muslims are bad and violent people, or so we are told, and they attack us because they hate our freedoms.

Unfortunately, reality tells a different tale. These attacks are in retalliation for our occupation of Arab countries and Muslim Holy Sites. You might think we'd understand this better than most people since it was the United States who helped Osama bin Laden and his Mujadeen fight the "evil" Soviets who had invaded and occupied Afghanistan. Oddly, though, we don't seem to have a clue. We don't seem to be able to connect the dots: invade Arab land, face resistance.

What is most scary about Lindsay's rhetoric is that it is so palatable to many Americans. So many of us are scared and angry and tired of worrying about Muslim fanatics that the simple solutions suggested by Lindsay are instantly popular. As we move more and more towards fascism in this country, it is more and more probable that we will begin to label and persecute "outsiders" in this country: Arabs, Muslims, Liberals, Mexican immigrants.

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