As the application of common sense continues to be deemed a politically inappropriate position to demonstrate — at least in public — it stands to reason that the more we learn, the less we know — or at least are supposed to know.
In the last month, we have been besieged by TV, radio and print stories attached to the revelation that the New York Police Department, post the 9/11 massacres, has conducted covert surveillance on US-based Muslim student organizations.
Covert surveillance, incidentally, is the most effective kind, given that one isn’t likely to reveal that he or she is up to no good — like plotting mass murder — while knowing that the cops are watching.
And the tacit tone, if not the outright conclusion of the bulk of these reports, has been as superficial as it has been predictable: Shame on America. Again.
Yep, all fair-minded, enlightened, freedom-loving Americans are supposed to be appalled by such revelations. Yet, the application of common sense tells us that such revelations should come as a great relief to all fair-minded, enlightened, freedom-loving Americans.
Those hollering foul the loudest — Muslim college student groups, civil rights activists, pandering politicians who choose and confuse populism, have been gifted the most media attention — no questions asked.
That means the tough questions, which include the best questions, never had a shot.
For example, given that the radical Islamic world — and that now seems to stretch deep into countries that suffer from their enlightenments — has declared jihad — indiscriminate warfare and murder — against Western-style democracies, shouldn’t all Muslim-American groups be eager to do whatever it takes to help police, rather than demonstrating an eagerness to hinder them?
You see, protesting folks, it’s like this: The NYPD doesn’t want 9/11 to happen again, and neither do we, and, presumably, neither do you!
If we’re to assume that these Muslim-American groups find radical Islam’s call for more mass murder of Americans abhorrent, why wouldn’t they welcome an investigation that could remove a terrorist plant from its midst?
Or will they wait for the next attacks to again demand sensitivity, that they not be attached to the stigma or blamed for the blood caused by radical Islam? What about preventative sensitivity?
The questions, which are never asked, come down to this: What do you have to lose from such common sense-based investigations? As Muslim-Americans don’t you and your families have a lot more to gain by helping law enforcement rid our country of murderous Islamic radicals?
If you want absolutely nothing to do with mass-murdering, freedom-exploiting terrorists who claim to take orders from Allah, then why not do everything possible to make sure that such an association does not exist?
And then the next question, again never asked, becomes:
Why are you protesting in front of City Hall, Police Headquarters, the State Capitol? If the unfair association with radical, homicidal-suicidal Islam is something you abhor, why not demonstrate in front of the embassies of those countries that promote Islamic extremism and terrorism and thus produce those unfair associations?
It’s not as if there’s a shortage of such countries — Saudi Arabia and Iran are good places to start — so why not get on their cases?
But our news media remain too polite, too conditioned to pander, to even hint at such things.
My favorite unasked question, though, would be put to protesting female college students:
First, I’d remind them that radical Islam, the kind they’d aid by demanding an end to policing agencies taking hard looks at local Muslim organizations, inhumanely and insanely oppresses women. For example, radical Islam would not allow any of these protesting women to attend college.
Then I’d ask, “What do you think of that?”