Why Does the Left Defend Actions by Muslims that Would Horrify Them in Any Other Context?
In the late 1970's, I guess it was OK to mock Islam because Gary Trudeau sure did it a lot in his Doonebury comic. I remember one panel where the Iranian Chief Justice was in the states for his college reunion, telling his old school mates he stayed in such great shape by "flogging" rather than jogging.
Today, though, the Left seems to feel that Islam is off-limits and even needs their protection. It's OK to mock Indiana for not forcing every photographer to work gay weddings but God forbid anyone mock countries that kill gays just for being gay. In Trudeau we have an icon of the 1960's radicals advocating for limits on free speech and for blasphemy laws. Too bizarre for words. Eugene Volokh has a good commentary on Trudeau's remarks.
Look, sometimes commentators like myself adopt a sort of feaux confusion on the actions of folks we disagree with. But I am being honest here -- I really, really don't understand this.
I will say that I think this position tends to support a pet theory of mine. Remember that I start with a belief that American Republicans and Democrats are not internally consistent on their politics, and not even consistent over time (e.g. Republicans opposed wars of choices in Kosovo under Clinton, supported them under Bush in Iraq, and then opposed them again under Obama in Libya).
So here is my theory to explain many party political positions: Consider an issue where one party is really passionate about something. The other party might tend to initially agree. But over time there is going to be pressure for the other party to take the opposite stand, whether it is consistent with some sort of party ideological framework or not. After 9/11, the Republicans staked out a position that they thought that Islam as practiced in several countries was evil and dangerous and in some cases needed to be subdued by force of arms. In my framework, this pushed Democrats into becoming defenders of modern Islam, even at the same time that domestic politics was pushing them to be critical of Christian religion as it affected social policy (i.e. abortion and later gay marriage). Apparently, the more obvious position of "yeah, we agree much of the Islamic world is illiberal and violent, but we don't think we can or should fix it by arms" is too subtle a position to win elections. I fear we have gotten to a point where if either party is for something, they have to be in favor of mandating it, and if they are against something, they have to be in favor of using the full force of government to purge it from this Earth. And the other party will default to the opposite position.
The counter-veiling argument to this is two words: "drug war". This seems to be a bipartisan disaster that is generally supported by both parties. So my framework needs some work.
