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2006 December 04
Copyright © Brian Wright

Ann Coulter
The Queen of Demean has sane moment

The local paper created a firestorm of controversy when it recently included the Divine Miss Hack-and-Slash to the mix of its syndicated columnists.  As a thoughtful, sensitive man who doesn’t believe in boiling “commie, bedwetting liberals” in oil, I’ve never been much of an Ann Coulter fan.

But in her column this morning, she actually does make a logical, valid point.  Further, my paper’s editor should be boiled in oil for giving Coulter’s column the following title:

  Want to boost airline business?  Prohibit Muslims on
  planes.

That would be typical Coulter hyberbole, but turns out she doesn’t state anything of the kind.  A more descriptive title is:

  If we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we
  wouldn’t need airport security.

Neither the Queen of Demean nor I are advocating banning Muslims from planes.

Coulter simply comments on a recent incident in which US Airways removes six Muslim imams from one of its flights for suspicious behavior—chanting Allah, audibly denouncing America, three having only one-way tickets, etc.—after which some disruptive behavior leads to them being temporarily detained by police.

Apparently, these “holy men” were returning to Arizona from a Minneapolis convention of 150 imams.  Now, these six imams want Muslims to boycott US Airways, thus making US Airways Ann Coulter’s favorite airline.  She also now will not use Northwest Airlines, which agreed to fly them home.

Coulter’s point is well taken that Muslims not liking something makes that something very likely a good thing for normal people.

Where Coulter goes wrong is trotting out the official fairy tale that puts radical Islam as the root cause of the 911 attacks (ref. Loose Change, and 911truth.org).  Other attacks, particularly Oklahoma City and World Trade Center I, however, do manifest the Islamic terror connection.  So we have a special reason to profile extreme Muslims based on their announced intention to kill us.

Finally, as a man of reason I have problems with any faith-based belief system.  Every one of the Abrahamic religions has been excessively hostile to humanity during their darker ages—say, for Christians: the Crusades, The Inquisition, genocide of the American Indian, etc.

The problem is Islam remains in its darker ages and, unlike Judaism and Christianity, its improprieties of faith have not been adequately subdued by secular forces.  So the West as a collection of liberal democracies is in a pickle with Islam because we extend freedom of religion to everyone.
 
Is a sect that practices female genital mutilation and killing of nonbelievers a religion?  Is Islam, itself, an enemy?  Well, it’s late so I’m going to postpone the consideration.  But if that case can be made, at the very least we shouldn’t kowtow to Islam out of political correctness. 

So, Ann, I’m more or less with you on this one.  Watch out for bad headline editors.