Tancredo's Comments

Via Matt Bruce, I find a Hugh Hewitt post I fully agree with.

UPDATE: Let me echo the very conservative Pejman here:

"We know a great many Muslims--as you might expect, given our background. Many--if not all--of the Muslims we know and know well are people we don't primarily think of as 'Muslims.' We think of them as 'friends.' Dear friends. Good friends. Cherished friends. Friends we would trust with our lives and the lives of our loved ones without fear that we will be let down.

"So when I see comments in the Blogosphere saying that you basically cannot trust Muslims in light of the War on Terror, when I see comments implying--if not outright saying--that all or most Muslims wish us ill and when I see transcendentally stupid comments about nuking Mecca . . . well . . . I tend to get displeased. Not only are people taking their eyes off of actual terrorists and instead being distracted by an entire religion, they are being incredibly offensive in the process. And I do not make these statements lightly. Because when I see those comments, I imagine my friends and my family's friends being affected by them. That tends to enrage me. When I am enraged, my anger is not easily soothed. Sometimes, it never is."

There are, of course, personal stories here that I won't go into, and the fear I'll have more when I get back from Egypt. Suffice it to say that many otherwise good people from, shall we say, less diverse backgrounds have no idea how to behave in public, and what tends to happen is that they see people who are non-white or non-Christian or whatever as some strange, unique foreign category which they try to talk about with me and because I'm both White and Christian they assume I'm part of their world and share the same assumptions. The fact I get annoyed by their assumptions, most of which could be avoided if they paid more attention to the world than the average turnip, tends to make them see me as some sort of academic snob or worse, because for them the issue is one of abstract politics rather than flesh and blood humanity.