
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 25, 2006
/ 3 Tishrei, 5767
The bedeviling truth of an open nation
By
Mitch Albom
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
They get to land at our airports without being destroyed. They get to enter our country without being arrested. They get to drive on our streets without their limos exploding. They get to sleep in our hotels protected by our Secret Service knowing no one will barge in and behead them.
And while they are here, they call our president "the devil" and call the Holocaust a myth, then return to the airport and fly home safely.
If last week's United Nations badmouthing appearances of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tested anything besides our patience it tested our sense of fairness. As a country founded on "liberty and justice for all," we expect balance. If we are good, you should be good. Even as children, we scream "that's not fair!" as if it is a precept of nature.
By the way, it is not. In many countries "fair" doesn't exist. You are born into a certain class, you stay there. You're on the wrong side of the dictator, you lose your rights.
We don't do things that way. So when our approach to life clashes with another, we often feel shortchanged. We look at men like Chavez, the hothead Venezuelan president, and Ahmadinejad, the deviously hypocritical president of Iran, spouting their junk on our shores, and we say, "Why are we letting these people talk?"
It's a fair question (there's that word again). After all, very few of our enemies would allow President George W. Bush to enter their turf, say their leader smells like the devil's sulfur, and expect to go home alive.
But we follow rules in this country, and one of those rules is freedom of speech. It's the reason the United Nations can exist on our ground. And it's the reason we have to tolerate the hate, vitriol and bald-faced lies we heard last week.
It doesn't mean we have to like it.
If you're like me, it sticks in your craw that a creep like Ahmadinejad can stand before the UN and suggest that everyone is entitled to "tranquility, peace and a dignified life" when we know last year he was telling a different audience that Israel "must be wiped off the map."
Or that Chavez, one of the world's great power-lusters, calls Bush a dictator and ends his news conference by saying to reporters: "I have a meeting with the axis of evil somewhere around here, so I have to go."
But this is who we are. This is the test we face. If we believe principles are precious like free speech we are bound to live by them. Even when it hurts.
This is also why we squirm so much on the detainee issue. We wring our hands over whether we can keep suspected terrorists in a cold room or blast rock music at them yet we know if the roles were reversed, they'd just shoot us. Cut our heads off. No trials. No national media to expose them. Who do they answer to?
The answer is they don't. The answer is it isn't fair. The answer is terrorists don't have formal governments, they don't sign treaties. We could slit a detainee's throat and say, "That's for Daniel Pearl," or we could hold Ahmadinejad in a basement and say, "That's for the Iranian hostage crisis."
The fact that we don't is what makes us special. The fact that we don't is what sets us apart. If we shut the microphones on every disliked foreigner, if we killed first and asked questions later, we might feel better, momentarily, in this terrible fight. But we'd lose the one thing we need the most.
We'd lose the feeling that we are the good guys. And if you lose that, a battle is truly pointless.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on Mitch's column by clicking here.
Mitch's Archives
© 2006, THE DETROIT FREE PRESS
DISTRIBUTED BY TMS, INC.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|