Pro-American Muslims

I recently discovered the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), a group whose mission statement reads as follows:

"We proud citizens of the United States of America join together as devoted and patriotic citizens and as devout Muslims in this forum in order to serve as a vehicle for the discussion and public awareness of the complete compatibility of America’s founding principles with the very personal faith of Islam which we practice."

That's what I've been waiting for: a group of Muslims who denounce and renounce the terrorism practiced by the Islamo-fascists (and those who aid them) who are so dominant on the world stage.

Among those who I classify as aiding the terrorists is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Among other things, CAIR is representing the group of six imams who were put off a US Airways flight in Minnesota because of their suspicious actions (see here and here.)

The imams are suing US Airways for discrimination, and in a move full of chutzpah, also suing the passengers who reported them. (Although they deny this, the language is still in their lawsuit.) As I mentioned previously, I think this lawsuit is designed to soften up the American system for future attacks by intimidating watchful citizens who would report suspicious actions.

This is, as are all cases about citizens' rights, a balancing act. The imams -- as well as all Muslims, or any other group -- have the right in America not to be discriminated against by virture of their race, religion, etc. This right, however, pales compared to the right of all of us not to be killed.

This does not mean that Muslims have lost their rights. It's just that, in a post 9/11 world, when Muslims (or anyone else, for that matter) act in a way that can be perceived by a normal, rational person as suspicious, they're lowering the level of their rights. They can't afford to be as arrogant and presumptuous as they might normally be in asserting those rights. And from all indications, the imams were acting very suspiciously, if not provocatively.

In recent weeks I've been working my way through Russell Kirk's book The Conservative Mind. In a section about Anglo-Irish political theorist Edmund Burke, Kirk notes that all rights come with correspending duties. If the imams want to enjoy their rights as American citizens, then they need to remember that they also have duties to their fellow citizens; those rights do not exist in a vacuum.