RDB 1

((Many things caused the industrial revolution))
I think it is absurd to blame any specific group for 9/11. Multiple things affect and cause almost every situation in life. Why else would we learn about the broad causes of, say, the Industrial Revolution in history class? Certain occurrences may have a greater influence than others upon an event, but I can think of no situation in which responsibility lies with only one thing or person. After reading part of D’Souza’s argument I do see that liberals hold some responsibility for 9/11. But conservatives, past and present Presidents, other countries, and religious leaders also (if we must blame) hold responsibility for those terrible terrorist attacks and American hatred. It was not only “the abortionists, the feminist, the homosexual activists, and the secularists” (D’Souza, 5) that influenced 9/11. Rather it was a muddled combination of countless things that can never be tallied or pointed too. I think that while D’Souza touches on many valid issues and reasons for 9/11, in reality there is a middle ground and that his views, even if they were blaming another group besides liberals, are too extreme.


I appreciate that D’Souza at least explains why he so vehemently blames liberals. Buried amongst the blaming I also learned new points about the Muslim world. I think that I must take any facts imbedded in his argument with caution since they could be shaped to fit a point. Nevertheless, I have never understood the different divisions amongst Muslims in the Middle East, so I found it helpful when D’Souza explains that “the real divide in the Muslim world is between Islamic radicals and traditional Muslims” (D’Souza 93) and then explain the divide. I like that he points out the overuse and misunderstanding of the word “fundamentalist.” The ambiguity of it not being a “useful term of distinction”(93) seemed similar to our need to define certain intangible terms such as “religion” and “abstract” often used in this World Lit class. I also find it interesting and very true that the Muslim world is not opposed to technology although we often like to think of them as hating America because of our advancement. The point that the insurgents, not terrorism, are the enemy also seemed very accurate. D’Souza backs up his arguments with references to interviews, events, articles, and facts and for that reason I admire how he writes his book.


((Red vs Blue America: Conservative vs Liberal America))
Still, D’Souza states that the “enemy [the liberals] at home [are] far more consequential and frightening than the enemy abroad” (D’Souza 13). Personally, I find a fundamentalist terrorist who would like nothing better than to blow himself up a little scarier than a fellow American who has only slightly different believes than me. And those slight difference in beliefs are all we are really talking about when people refer to “liberals” and “conservatives.” I think that most American citizens hold similar values, and it is only certain hot-topic issues and ideas about how to implement policies that make the liberal-conservative divide. D’Souza argues that “American popular culture is, for the most part, liberal culture” and that the “values it celebrates—such as openness, diversity, and the uninhibited cultivation of individuality—are liberal values” (D’Souza 123). I do not think that those values are only liberal, they are actually very traditional, and therefore, conservative values. Thus there is more a middle ground than an extreme slant upon which to blame one group of people. Similarly, although D’Souza claims that we view the “War on Terror” with an ethnocentric view, so too do other countries and everyone else . . . “through the lens of their assumptions and beliefs” (D’Souza 72).


Thus D’Souza makes some good points. He just needs to stop so strongly blaming one group of people and realize that the blame, if blame needs to be laid anywhere, belongs somewhere in the middle.