America+-+'America+the+Beautiful'

America: "America the Beautiful" This guy, this is guy is ... just, wow.

At first I thought it would be a little difficult, if not somewhat presumptious, to call out an expert, but Dinesh D'Souza is just appalling and down-right inaccurate. As someone who likes history and feels as though it should be treated with the utmost care, I quickly noticed that D'Souza used footnotes only for clearing up certain references, and not to refer to research. This is problematic because his history is wrong, and that has big impacts on his overall argument. I just can't believe D'Souza made so many historical mistakes, even for a politcal-science person. D'Souza, when talking about the strides taken to create the über progressive America, says that "the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution were some of the major sign posts on Western civilization's road to modernity (718)." True, these events did occur on the timeline before America, but that's it. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe went into, what is affectionately called, the dark ages (also a misconception, but not important), during the dark ages, a lot of stuff was lost. The Renaissance, and Scientific Revolution weren't making new ground, they were reclaiming lost ground. Technically, we should be far more advanced as a civilization, but that whole "lost nearly everything we knew" thing kind of put a damper on that. It's not like the Church just stood by idlely either, it was big factor in not going anywhere with science, because, you know, dogma. The Enlightenment brought new ideas to politcal science, if by new we mean "done by the greeks, but simply expanded upon." As for all the philosophical thought of the Enlightenment, it doesn't mean a lot, all of philosophy is basically footnotes to Plato. The Reformation may have been a progressive step, but it was the cause for dozens of bloody wars in Europe. D'Souza then goes on to say "By contrast, the Islamic world did not have a Renaissance or a Reformation. No Enlightenment of Scientific Revolution either. ... Islamic societies are ... not very different from how they were a thousand years ago (718)." Again: WHAT? The Islamic world didn't need a Renaissance or a Scientific Revolution because they were too busy giving their stuff to Europe so they could have their Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. If it weren't for the Islamic world, we would probably be really far behind. Although my Islamic-history knowledge is limited, to say it didn't have an Enlightenment of some sort is pretty crass, every civilization has philosophers. To some, the fact there was no Reformation in Islam is a testament to the faith's consitency, but alas, 'tis not entirely so; there is the split that created the different sects, sunni, shi'ite, and the like (my Islamic-history knowledge is //really// limited), which could, in some regards, be considered the same as the Reformation. Furthermore, at one point in the 20th century, the Islamic world was very liberal and progressive and saw a great chance at becoming a contender in the modern world, which changed with the conservative revolutions. This isn't the only point where D'Souza gets his history wrong, but now would be a better place to look at his general argument.

D'Souza's argument fails to keep consistency and is essentially a pat on the back while saying "it's okay, America, they just don't like us 'cause we're better than them." Alright, so he doesn't actually use those words exactly, but it's pretty close. His main argument seems to be two parts, his first part, that America is taken off-guard when a theological or moral argument is used against America and that most of why other countries dislike us is based on said moral argument, stands on shaky ground. True is that America will be thrown for a loop if morality is used against America, his Spanish Inquisition metaphor works well, it's hard to go against "I am concerned with your eternal soul. Ultimately virtue is far more important than freedom (718)." However, D'Souza later provides a deeper cause for malcontent, a "humiliated people who are seeking to recover ancestral greatness (720)." D'Souza contradicts himself by offering two possibilities: morality and a desire to be great. Ultimately, I think, the answer is far more complexed than D'Souza is making it out to be, there's hundreds of year's worth of history between the Islamic world and Western civilization, filled with politics, wars, aide, and tension. To say all of our problems are because middle eastern countries dislike not being on top is like saying the Nazis rose to power because Germany wanted to be on top, or that the U.S.S.R. became what it was because of Vladmir Lenin, and that's an insult ot history.

The second part of D'Souza's argument revolves around how America should approach the problem. First, he looks at the idea of appeasement and working out the two cultures' differences; and true to himself in the article, he over simplifies anything that doesn't agree with his position. He puts all of American culture into the single being of Jerry Springer, "Yes, they [Islamic fundamentalists] are right about Springer. If we could get them ... to stop bombing our facilities in return for ... Jerry Springer ... we should make the deal tomorrow (721)." Looking at it again, it's insulting to American culture to give a single persona, it's way more than that. Not to mention, he completely throws the idea of discussion under the table. True, middle-eastern countries have things like McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Macintosh, and other parts of American material-culture, but what these countries hate is the apparent American hand in their politics. D'Souza, of course, doesn't give this a thought, saying it would be too hard in a time where "the flow of information is virtually unstoppable (721)." We could stay out, of their politics; but all of this is simply leading up to D'Souza's solutions, which unfortunately, involve more meddling. "The U.S. should demand that those countries [that house terrorism] dismantle their terror networks and stop being incubators of terrorism (721)." Well, that doesn't sound too bad, with the right negotiations we cou- "In some cases, such as Iraq, the direct use of force might be the answer (721)." Oh... //lovely//, but not as great as his solution with Iran, which is to stir up dissent in Iran's middle class. D'Souza proceeds to suggest that in countries of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt, the governments are allowing terrorism aimed at America as a deflection of their own failings, the solution of which is to cut American funding for these countries. This is where D'Souza needs to pause and think about what he just said. We are giving money to countries that are homes to terrorism, so we cut funding; but it's not that simple. We are giving money to governments that D'Souza admitts are performing "misdoings and tyranny (722)." What the people of these countries see is America paying their oppressors, so they get pissed and plot to destroy us. The oppressive governments don't care because, yes, it does deflect malcontent onto America, but also, America is still paying these governements: it's a win-win. And apparently D'Souza is willing to essentially annihilate an entire culture as "America's goal is ... to turn Muslim fundamentalists into classical liberals (722)." This isn't exactly a complete elimination of a culture, but it's watering a culture down so that it's sedated enough that America has no problems, which is just as bad. In the same vein, D'Souza says that multiculturalists, who believe that one of America's strongest aspects is it's diversity, "are simply wrong (723)." Granted, in this article, both groups are representing the two extremes on the scale, but it doesn't help D'Souza to look extreme.

Yet, D'Souza shows his extremeness and blatant bias with "America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence (726)." I'm going to call bull on this, true, America is a lovely country, and I'm proud to be an American, but this place isn't roses, rainbows, and fireworks. This kind of one-sidedness screws over the air that D'Souza knows what he's doing and is looking at this from both sides, something that I would think he would want to do. It's not just at the end either, D'Souza "destroys" the moral argument agains America before the article makes it to its fifth paragraph, "Americans need to believe that they are on the side of the angels. The good news is that they usually are (717)." This is D'Souza's response to the Islamic assertion that God is on their side, in juvenille terms, "nu-uh, he's on //our// side." Then there's more war talk as "Americans cannot effectively fight a war without believing that it is a just war. That's why America has only lost once, in Vietnam, and that was because most Americans did not know what they were fighting for (717)." Again with the bad history, Vietnam was not a technical U.S. war, so its inclusion would require the Korean War, which is another loss, but that's as far as I'm willing to correct. So what exactly are we fighting for? What America is always fighting for: freedom. "... freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option (724)." What's odd to me is that wouldn't this be true for muslims in the Islamic world, even if they were given freedom; wouldn't we still see terrorism because people accept the other option? Well, we're about to find out; Egypt's government was overthrown during the recent Arab Spring, and there was much rejoicing. Now the interesting thing is that the overthrown-dictatorship was American backed, and the now democratic Egypt has the option of electing into power the Muslim Brotherhood (not exactly American friendly), we'll see soon enough what happens when freedom is let free. Finally, I want to address I'd like to address D'Souza's pretentiousness who says that "by defeating the terrorist threat (via means of total assimilation, just thought I'd like to point that out again) posed by Islamic fundamentalistm, we can protect the American way of life while once again redeeming humanity from a global menace (726)" with this eloquent statement: "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." (yes I know it's a Batman quote)