And its due is that most people I have known who are willing to excuse their racist crap by saying they are reasoning from the general to the particular are assholes I would have preferred not to have met.

For the record I have known many people in the US and Canada of Arabic descent. Many I have counted as friends. My friends have ranged from Baha'is exiled by the Iran revolution to Afghan royalty exiled by the Soviet invasion. I shared an office in graduate school with a Pakistani named Naveed. We had long conversations several years ago about why the terrorists use of religion was a perversion of the principles of Islam. He taught me by example how to play ping-pong, and last I heard he had married a woman from Texas and was pursuing the American dream in Atlanta. Going the other way, my best friend in my previous job married an Uzbeki. I don't know how to spell her name, but it is pronounced, "Shaknos". I don't think there are many happier couples than me and my wife, but they just might be one of them.

Now there are clearly other kinds of Arabs. The buildings I used to see every day which fell before our eyes demonstrates that. But the family of the man who we believe is behind that, Osama bin Laden, long ago threw him out of their family and disowned him. And the taxi driver whose cab I rode in as the buildings burned was Arabic. Was he on the side of the terrorists? Not that I saw! He looked both terribly sad and very scared.

Throughout America today the question is who could do something like this? Who could hate a people so much that they would attack innocent civilians out of a blue sky and rejoice in the death and destruction?

My answer to that is simple. Most of the Arabs I have personally known, would not. However in every country, in every people, there are some who would. And the ones from our country who would are the same people who think that putting firebombs through American mosques is a good idea.

Now you say that Arabs should show support for being American to avoid hatred. I agree that showing support is a good idea right now for all Americans. However today Arabic Americans are caught in a catch-22 situation. If they don't show support they are hated by people who claim they are not part of our society. If they do show support they are hated by people who claim they are mocking America and American deaths. The truth is that many today just want to hate an Arab, and don't care how little sense it makes.

It is bigots like that who claim to love their country even as they set out and destroy everything that this country stands for. There are many Arabs I have been proud to name as friends. The same does not go for the people who are harrassing fellow Americans in the name of America.

Ben

What about what I "preached" do you think people (including me) find hard to practice?

I strongly suspect that you are reading me and projecting a caricature of what you think PC people are like onto me. If so then you have certainly not read what I have written on IWETHEY in the past about racism, stereotyping, when it makes sense, when it doesn't, and what I see as the proper role of government in the same. My full feelings on the topic are rather too complex to fit in any convenient labels that I have seen.

But that doesn't change the fact that right now I despise the people who are taking their outrage over last Tuesday out on fellow Americans.

Ben

History indicates that simple black and white pictures tend to have their own dangers. And often you need to balance out opposing dangers. Merely saying, "This is my threat, what can I do against it?" without taking into account more subtle trade-offs has in the past consistently been the cause of new nasty threats.

So I aim for the most effective understanding I can get, with a feedback cycle limited only by the effort taken inputing and analyzing data, and with my active seeking shaped by my personal opinion of how important different things are to look for. (Even when I am not actively seeking information on something, I am passively open to new information if I should stumble on it.)

I attempt to modulate my own behaviour according to what is likely to be most effective in reaching my personal goals of the moment.

For instance, based on having known quite a few Arabs living in the US and Canada, my most effective understanding is that these people generally came here for a reason, and a good portion have nothing to go back to. And I stand by my claim that these people are, even with the effort needed to search for terrorist cells, a net benefit for our country.

Just a random example that came up last night in conversation with my wife. What would you do with a woman born in Iran by the name of Shirley Basiri? (I don't know the spelling of the last name, sorry.) Make up your mind. Would you want to evict her? Well if so then you have just chosen to evict a Jew whose family fled the Iranian revolution. She is also a top medical student at one of the top 10 medical schools in the US. Sounds to me like someone I would want to keep around...

You might find it rather less squishy than you think. Sure, it talks about ideals. That is largely because people who think themselves moved by ideals of the human spirit are more likely to react generously than people who are not.

As for racist assholes, well do you think we should have kind words for the people firebombing mosques and threatening Arab Americans?

But what is the truth of it for me? Well the truth is that any perceptive person mistaken notion that all cultures are to be treated equally is unlikely to survive any real friendship with someone of a different culture. Likewise any silly notion that all people are treated equally in the US is unlikely to survive any friendship with someone of a different race. I am a person who attempts to be somewhat perceptive, and I have definitely named as friends over the years people of different races and cultures. So it should come as no surprise that I am aware of how much the US falls short of its ideals, and I don't have particularly rose-colored glasses.

But still I believe that multi-culturalism in the US is a good thing, and is worth supporting.

More precisely I believe that this is a nation that draws great strength from its immigrants. That tradition is not just (in some vague sense) the right thing to do, but is good for the country in very direct ways. Of course not all imigrants are good for us. But by and large, they work out very much to our benefit.

Think about this. Your average immigrant has generally had to come several thousand miles, has settled in a country that speaks a foreign language, and is trying to set down roots. Very often they have managed to do this while coming from a place where your average person is dirt poor and conditions are pretty desperate. Overall there is a decent correlation between being able to do that and being motivated, intelligent, and reasonably good with money. On the whole those are traits that are pretty good to have in your populace...

Now I won't say that immigrants are an unmitigated good, or that all of them are wonderful people. I am not stupid and I don't ask you to be either. But over the years studies have consistently found that on the whole immigrants put more into our economy than they take out. The outcry goes, "They are taking American jobs!" Well, not really. At first they take jobs that nobody wants. After they can take real jobs, well put a bunch of good workers in your economy, and you improve productivity. Improve productivity, and you wind up creating jobs and raising the standard of living. Jobs are not a fixed resource, rather they are a dynamic resource. Again and again immigrants wind up creating more jobs than they take. (Besides which, their food tastes good...)

Now it may not be pretty good for the rest of the world, but many of the best and the brightest choose to come here. Seems to me that this is a pretty good thing for us, and it is something that the US should want to encourage...