However, two students stood outside the clotheslines, behind the fluttering purple ribbons and with rage in our hearts and laughter on our lips, disagreed heartily with the proceedings. I was one of them. Obviously. I stood and listened as the students, who felt very important, outlined five points that they felt should be the priorities in our national quest for "justice." Did these children, who don't even have a college degree yet, consult political scientists when forming their little list? Economists? Historians? Of course not! Who needs facts when we've got feelings?
They cited several dozen incidents of assaults upon Arab-Americans as indicative of some sort of governmental endorsement of racially motivated crime sprees and "demanded" (their favorite word) an end to them. There are five million Muslims in this country. Forty assaults, as terrible as they are, do not a policy make.
Of course, one student claimed that, since we'll never stop terrorism, why bother risking the lives of Americans to fight it? This seems to be the same line of thinking taken by those smoking weed during the rally, that if people are going to do it anyway, why expend time and energy prosecuting their actions?
Well, heck, we're not going to stop rape and murder any time soon. Why not just let people be guided by their own consciences? Who am I to say that rape and murder are wrong in any sort of absolute sense?
Which brings me to my second-biggest gripe against the ralliers. Since they're all good liberals and probably cultural relativists, why do they say that bringing those responsible to justice in the United States is really the way to handle this situation? They seem to think that the United States is the nation with the problems of racism, poverty, oppression and whatnot. If all systems of justice are equally valid and all governments are equally valid, why not use the Taliban's court system to try the perpetrators? (Their motto: "You want justice? We got rocks.")
My biggest problem with the rally was the equating of the loss of our civilians to the future loss of American military and Afghan citizens. People who join the military do so knowing full well that, at any time, they may be called to give up their lives for their country. It is a risk they accept freely.
The folks aboard those aircraft were not given that option. Nor were the folks who watched in horror as a jetliner came screaming right at their office building. They were not asked if they were willing to die for Islam.
Why are we not supposed to be angry? Why is it wrong to feel normal human emotions? Why must we always sit on our asses and fret while, half a world away, new attacks are being planned? The enemy is not resting to contemplate the merits of a democracy or the potential loss of life-of Americans or Afghans. And they're mad as hell. The students at the peace rally commanded us to respect the anger of the enemy and to discard our own, to channel it into the tying on of colored ribbons and the making of posters that get ruined in the rain.