Let us hope that our knee jerk response to politics we do not completely understand does not send it down the very direction we most fear. People can be conservative of dress and nevertheless humane and merciful.
In this country, so-called "conservatives" embrace a politic of anger. When our politics is angry, it breeds anger elsewhere. We bring forth what we put out there.
As Yoda said in Star Wars "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to suffering."
Let us try to give these Egyptians the benefit of the doubt in their faltering first steps toward democracy.
Remember Viet Nam? We fought so hard in fear against the communists. Then they took over, and within a few years they wanted to be our friends. They still control Viet Nam, and yet no one now regards them as a serious threat to us. What were we so afraid of?
Islam and conservative Muslims are the new communists in the simple-minded, jingoistic us v them gloss that our fear mongering press puts on the news -- the sound byte news.
Let us reject descriptions of people in other countries as sound bytes. Let us seek after a more sophisticated understanding. Let us look for ways to turn this into a win-win situation, rather than an us v them thing.
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