We Are All Bigots Now

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David Stokes

We Are All Bigots Now

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Sign-Up The firing of Juan Williams by National Public Radio (NPR), alleging that he was guilty of bigotry during a recent appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s FoxNews Channel television program, is another case of political correctness mixed with demagoguery run amuck.



Here are the “horrific” words that did him in:



"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."



Frankly, there’s nothing bigoted in the statement—not at all. If there is, then we are all bigots now, and maybe that’s the point National “Passive-Aggressive” Radio is trying to make. Williams’ remark was not only a reflection of common sense; it’s common sense that’s widely shared. I find myself feeling the same way on occasion. A family member who recently flew to Detroit told me that after the plane was airborne, a man in “Muslim garb” (you know it when you see it) got up and bowed down in the aisle for some reason. Everyone who saw it was uncomfortable and it is doubtful anyone slept for the remainder of the flight.



It was clearly an aircraft filled with bigots.



The problem is that the people at NPR suffer from the same disorder as do Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, and a growing multitude of naïve Americans. They fail to acknowledge the clear Muslim threat to America and our way of life. And when someone dares to mention the “M” word, some liberals are like 6-year olds with hands over their ears and yelling, “Blah, Blah, Blah, I Can’t Hear You!”



But it’s worse than childish behavior on their part; it’s willful ignorance.



Of course, whenever the issue of the Muslim connection to Islamism (like hydrogen’s connection to water) is mentioned, the knee-jerk response by some is to say something akin to, “Well, you can’t condemn all Christians because of what Timothy McVeigh did.” In fact, Juan Williams, who remains a liberal, but one clearly with a brain and who is transparent about his feelings on things even when they run counter to the liberal line, actually made that leap on O’Reilly’s show. But slack should be cut, because he learned the hard way that even if you try to temper a potentially negative statement about Islam with a dose of tortured moral equivalency, it is never enough to assuage the women on The View or those who worship at similar altars.



Never mind the fact that if Islamists ever do get a foothold in America—in a way commensurate with their vision—programs like The View will be cancelled and replaced with a wild and crazy program called The Sharia Show. Liberals think themselves enlightened every time they bash Christianity and defend Islam, but they are really helping the darkness creep over our nation. And unlike Niemoeller’s “and then they came for me” moment, the Islamists will go after “enlightened” liberals first and the individual reaction will be the same, “Wait, I was on your side!”—The mantra of dupes.



Here is a very important distinction between what those on Sept. 11th did, along with the Fort Hood shooter, and others would have done elsewhere if not prevented. They attempted or did what they did IN THE NAME OF ISLAM (emphasis on purpose). Timothy McVeigh did not proclaim “Jesus Is Lord” when he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In fact, truth be told McVeigh was a professed agnostic who said he worshipped science!



The attacks nine years ago that killed 3,000 Americans were not just done by people who happened to have grown up in a Muslim country, but they were done IN THE NAME OF ISLAM (emphasis, again, on purpose). When Nidal Hasan climbed onto the table last year at Fort Hood, he cried, “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah Is Great”) before opening fire. He was not a nut who happened to be Muslim; he did what he did because he was Muslim. This distinction must be made again and again because it is clear that some Americans simply don’t get it and others have long since lost interest.



Islam was the reason for the Sept. 11th attacks and every attack or attempt since, according to those who planned, funded, and implemented them—without exception. And no one involved took time or cared to make a distinction between “their” Islam and the kind some others profess to believe.



As for NPR, its extrinsic media role in America is once again glaringly apparent. Proudly (arrogantly) portraying itself as a voice of objectivity, the slant of most of the news elements shared on its member stations is decidedly to the far left. In fact, they have been looking for a reason to throw Juan Williams under the proverbial bus for a long time. His sin? He appears regularly on FoxNews. Liberals, who decried perceived “guilt by association” in the 1950s, seem to have embraced the methodology these days.



Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” But of course, this is exactly the case with NPR. Our tax dollars support it. Not all of it, but a significant portion (some estimates are as high as 16 percent of the network’s revenue). Created in a day and age long before cable television, satellite radio, YouTube, and whatnot, the idea was to provide another media option among few others.



But is NPR really even needed today? If so, let the market determine the issue. Let the stations continue to beg for money to regularly save the stations (as is the case right now, bummer of a timing issue with the Williams imbroglio, huh?) and if the money runs out, let them die. A nation without NPR is much preferred to one where my tax dollars support a propaganda arm of the American left. Better yet, let George Soros just fund the whole thing. He already gives them a boatload of cash. And we all know that he is all about objectivity.



Hey wait, with all the charges leveled from the White House recently about “foreign money” and politics, isn’t Soros from a whole other country—or planet?



David Stokes

David R. Stokes is a minister, author, and broadcaster. Since August of 1998, he has served as Senior Pastor of Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, Virginia.