They Are Who We Thought They Were

A couple of years ago, Dennis Green, the then head coach of the Arizona Cardinals spouted a rant that now lives in infamy, along with Jim Mora's famous "playoffs?" speech.  His Cardinals had just gotten a solid whuppin from the Chicago Bears.  The Bears, as I remember it, were near the top of the heap that year, but they had recently had a few stumbles, all of which got well in a hurry when they took the field against the Cardinals.  A reporter asked Green what went wrong.  Green proceeded to lose his temper rather badly and kept repeating: "They are who we though they were." By which he meant: they're one of the best teams in the league and they flat out beat us, but he was too angry to put it that dispassionately. It is generally a bad idea to assume that people, football teams or nation states are going to suddenly break form and become something they're not.  It can happen, but if you're preparing for a contest don't bank on it.
As it turns out Donald Trump is pretty much who I thought he was, but still I am troubled that it has gotten this bad this fast.  Week two: people being detained at airports, protests in the streets, alternative facts; in short ominous drum beats.  But I'm not going to just lob grenades at what I consider to be an obvious (very likely unconstitutional) over-reach of presidential authority or over-react to what the executive order that some have called a Muslim-ban.  I'm going to step back from that position and take it precisely as Trump intends: a move to protect our nation from those who would do us harm.
I have a lot of problems with the actual implementation of this measure, but I'm not going to go into any of the moral, ethical or theological reasons I have for despising the very premise of this executive order.  I am going to simply point out this article from the Washington Post.  If you're going to argue with me that the Post or the NY Times are typical liberally biased media outlets, I will ask you to distinguish between what is contained in the editorial and opinion sections (clearly delineated in most cases) and what is actual reporting.  This is not an opinion piece, this is reporting about the mindset of actual terrorist organizations, not speculation as to what they might think, but rather interpreting their positive joy at something that our President thought was a hard line crackdown: "new policies validate their claim that the United States is at war with Islam," and "President Trumps executive order would persuade American Muslims to side with extremists."  Our printed media may be the last bastion of actual vetted reporting, they do make mistakes, they do over-react from time to time, but with so much clearly illegitimate (I won't say fake) news stories floating around out there I have come to distrust anything that doesn't at least have some sort of journalistic credibility.
The headline of the article linked above is: Jihadist groups hail Trump's travel ban as a victory. There is no alternative fact to it, the people we consider to be our greatest enemy in the "war on terror," are tickled pink by the travel restrictions imposed by the executive order.  That ought to give us pause.  They're not mad about it, they think it plays right into their hands.  I have mentioned in this blog before about the rather quixotic methodology of trying to combat an enemy whose biggest beef with you is that you are a tyrannical empire that wants to oppress the followers of their god, by acting like a more tyrannical empire who wants to oppress the followers of their god.  It is like a bully punching the kid who just called him a bully in the face for calling him a bully.
This is not, in any way, sympathizing with Islamic extremists, in fact the point I'm making here is that perhaps we ought to try a strategy that doesn't involve doing exactly the kind of things they want us to do. Like when your crazy uncle dares you to pull his finger, don't do it kid!
Our desired narrative is that America is the land of the free, a diverse nation where all are given a shot at the American dream.  Watch this and try not to feel abashed by what is going on right now.  The narrative that ISIS and Al Quaida are selling is that America is a godless, imperialist power bent on world domination and the corruption of the noble followers of Allah with their western decadence.  When we bomb them, invade them, give the people they are trying to win to their cause no other recourse but to believe we are exactly what the extremists say we are...
You judge for yourself.
I would much rather see our nation live up to its potential and hold dearly to the ideals of justice, liberty and equality under the law.  I feel morally and ethically compelled as a follower of Christ to do so, however I understand that not everyone shares those convictions and I am way past assuming that we are anything like a Christian nation. But look you don't have to listen to Jesus, just pay attention to the corny schoolhouse rock video.  Isn't that what we want to be?
It's what I want to be. I'm pretty sure it is what most of us, Progressive and Conservative alike, want it to be.  We all need to ask ourselves some hard questions about why it's not working out like that right now.