Sam Harris' Op-ed Piece: One Reaction

Sam Harris' Op-ed Piece: One Reaction

I thought it was a thrilling article, which one is going to think if one has written the same thing previously. I even share Mr. Harris' political views on the other issues he mentioned as well as the accursed ideological label.

I did not like the criticism of our fellow-kind though. As was asserted here recently* on that bastion of the accursed The New York Times, there is way too much political anger in the air. We have a common enemy, Islam, we ought not divide ourselves in facing it. I almost wrote all of this in the previous post on Mr. Harris' article but wanted its exciting, pure essence to be imbibed without additives.

I sent the article to a friend of the liberal persuasion. And he was pissed.
"Sorry, this is one of the dumbest articles if not THE dumbest article you have ever sent me."
"Truth is there are many liberals like me who see the dangers posed by the Islamic world. We just don't think that attacking a secular country, that had no wmd's and did not support terrorism was the way to deal with the problem."
"Iran is a true threat--they have wmd's and support terror all over the world and [Bush] hasn't done a fucking thing about this and will not do a fucking thing about this."

The problem with Mr. Harris' article is that it makes other Americans, like my friend, defensive and because of that, unable to be thoughtful and change their minds. Nobody likes to be called an idiot and calling them an idiot is likely going make them defend their positions all the more strongly and make them dismissive of the views of those who are calling them idiots. No mas. This is Public Occurrences.

*New York Times: Pope Should Apologize September 16, 2006.