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by Jon Sutz, Editor, SaveTheWest.com
In recent months, we’ve witnessed a seemingly endless spectacle of protests, which are based on criticizing America as a whole, or at least major parts of it. Protesters have accused America of being a repressive, unfair, racist, bigoted, violent, intolerant, greedy, hateful place. And, we’ve been told that the only way America can redeem itself is to adopt the practices of other cultures (all of which are non-capitalist; more on that later).
But are these accusations true?
No. These accusations are almost invariably made with no evidence, or are based on “proof” that is propped up atop flimsy data, if not demonstrable lies.
If we had a functional educational system, and if mainstream news organizations were dedicated to informing the general public of the vital issues facing us, nearly every twelve-year-old in America would know this.
The purpose of this essay is to explain why these accusations are not true, based on two recent experiences I had.
Soliciting at the entrance to a “big box store” for donations to an animal shelter
On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, I volunteered with the local animal shelter here in Charlottesville, VA, to help it acquire the cleaning, pet-care, and office products it needs. My role was to greet visitors at the entrance of a membership-based big-box superstore, explain the event, hand them flyers containing the shelter’s wish list, and notify them that there was a cart at the exit, where they could deposit the items they purchased for the shelter.
Over the course of the next several hours, I encountered several hundred shoppers, from all walks of life. Every skin color, shape, size and appearance you can imagine. Some shoppers were very poor, driving vehicles from the late 1960s that looked like they were about to fall apart. Others were driving big, shiny, new Mercedes and Audi sedans. Most were driving cars that fit in-between these extremes.
Were one to listen only to the throngs of protesters on our streets, they would think that all the shiny, expensive cars were driven by white people, and all the ugly, barely-functional old cars were driven by poor people of color. The reality, which I witnessed with my own eyes, over and over again, was often the exact opposite. A very significant portion of the most luxurious cars I saw were being driven by men and women of color, while the majority of the aged, weathered cars and trucks were driven by white people.
I saw quite a few mixed-race couples, generally white women with black men, but there was a steady stream of others, including what appeared to be Asians, Native Americans, Middle Eastern-appearing people, and every other. If America were indeed the racist, bigoted, intolerant place that the protesters (and certain influential “news” and Hollywood figures) say, such a slew of mixed-race couples would walk every step in fear — especially in a former slave state like Virginia. Yet there was no problem at all. People simply minded their own business, and often, said hello to one another.
Some of the patrons (again, white, black and brown) had pistols in openly-visible holsters on their belts. And yet there was no gunfire, (or acts of robbery).
Most people were in a hurry to get their shopping done, and were not interested in hearing what they might have speculated was a sales pitch of some kind, especially from someone like me, who pretty clearly was not accustomed to giving impromptu public pitches. But nearly all were polite, and most took the flyer I was handing out.
Many seemed to be interested in purchasing an item from the shelter’s wish list, no matter how rich or poor they seemed to be, or what color they were. This impression was validated later, when I was told at the end of the event, that we had filled four big storage carts of desired items, the best result for this kind of event in the shelter’s recent history. And it further validates a fact that not many people (or protesters) know: that Americans are the most charitable people on Earth, year after year.
Looking at what I witnessed from a higher perspective
Everything I described above was from was my ground-level perspective. Now, let’s elevate our view to a bird’s eye perspective. What we would see is people from all callings, backgrounds, races and ethnicities imaginable, peacefully and politely engaging in free-enterprise commerce, at one of the “big box stores” that the protesters love to vilify.
Why were all those people there? Because in their own, independent judgment, they felt that this store offered the best value for their money. And the store, eager to earn and retain their business, fulfilled this perception. People left the store, many with full shopping carts, often smiling.
Every one of them, regardless of background, was engaging in economic freedom — better known as capitalism — here, in the most vibrant, advanced capitalist market in the world. Something to keep in mind, the next time you see hysterical throngs of protesters on our streets, and at our schools, shrieking that capitalism must be destroyed, so that we might become a “fair” society.
And from a still higher perspective
Also, keep in mind that it was within this allegedly “unfair” system of economic freedom (capitalism) that an array of black Americans and immigrants of color, who started off with little or nothing, rose to the absolute pinnacle of wealth and accomplishment. Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Ben Carson, Chris Gardner (“The Pursuit of Happyness”), Justice Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, and countless other leaders of commerce, industry, science and the arts all started in poverty, but rose through their ability, drive, industriousness and resiliency.
In what other nation can anyone, of any color or background, rise from nothing to such heights, in the course of a few years, or decades? That is the America I love. That is the America that many Americans love — the land of endless opportunities. And sadly, that is the America that our protesters pretend doesn’t exist, and shouldn’t exist, because according to them, it is “unfair” that some (even people of color) should have so much, while others have so little.
My health club
The second experience I wish to share, that obliterates the protesters’ narrative, is my observations when I visit the health club to which I belong.
Like the big-box store at which I volunteered, this club is attended by people across the racial, ethnic and economic spectrum. While not inexpensive, it provides superb value, offering an array of fitness equipment, an indoor aquatics center, and hundreds of exercise and wellness classes.
To visit this club on any day is to see much the same thing I witnessed at the big-box store. People of every color, shape, size and background, engaging in activities for pleasure and self-improvement, side-by-side. Almost always with enormous politeness and mutual encouragement.
But that fact alone is not why I include this experience here.
Rather, it is because of the females at this club, and I suspect, clubs like it across America. The ladies and girls I observe are as varied as anyone else; every color under the sun, young and old, slim and not, healthy and those struggling to get healthier.
They also dress in very different ways. Some wear long-leg, loose-fitting workout pants and frumpy tops. Others wear skin-hugging clothes that leave little to the imagination, as to the contours of their bodies. In the aquatics center this becomes even more pronounced, as more conservative, one-piece swimsuits of yesteryear give way to more skimpy two-piece versions.
With growing frequency, I am also seeing women in burqas, some very plain, others colorful and intricate.
And we all, men included, work out and enjoy ourselves, in peace, and politeness.
How many of these ladies and girls are aware of the preciousness and rarity of the freedom they take for granted?
How many are aware that America is the world’s leading force in recognizing and protecting this freedom?
The significance of this observation is that in a huge swath of the world, such a mixture of females and males would not only be inconceivable, it would be legally or culturally forbidden, and the price for violating it could be horrific.
In those repressive, fundamentalist theocratic nations (nearly 50 in all), shariah — the totalitarian Islamist doctrine — dictates all aspects of life, politics and the economy. Females are forced to cover themselves from head to toe, and are forbidden to leave their homes without a male escort, or to interact in any way with any male who is not part of their clique or tribe. If they disobey or question these dictates, they are physically attacked, grotesquely disfigured, or murdered — often by their own families — in the most hideous ways imaginable. All of which is justified under the code of laws and customs that govern these nations (and which is now being exported into non-shariah nations of the world; more on that in a moment).
If you’re not familiar with the documentary film, “The Honor Diaries,” which features testimonies from the victims — and the perpetrators — here is an extended excerpt (full version is available on Amazon Prime Video, or on DVD):
It’s not just these uber-repressive nations in which these horrors occur; they are now being exported to “civilized” nations as well, almost all of which are buckling under the pressure of political correctness
It should be noted that when I speak of this “huge swath” of nations, I am not speaking only about those repressive ones. Increasingly, I am talking about nations that boast of their “freedom” and “sophistication,” but which are now facing skyrocketing incidents of rape, sexual assault, molestation and attacks on females of all ages — almost all of which are being perpetrated by refugees and immigrants from those repressive nations, due to their belief in shariah law.
Before you start calling me ugly names, consider:
France: An 8-year-old French girl was stabbed nearly to death by a Moroccan Muslim man, who also stabbed her older sisters and mother — because he alleged she was “scantily clad,” and found it was indecent. In France.
Sweden: Until a few decades ago, Sweden was one of the safest nations in the world. Then, it began accepting a practically unlimited number of immigrants from the most repressive, fundamentalist Muslim nations on Earth. Since then, Sweden has become what law enforcement agencies now refer to as the “rape capital of the West.” The Swedish government itself now estimates that 25% of women there will be raped, and as research in Norway confirms, almost all of these rapes there are being perpetrated by immigrants from Muslim nations.
Germany: Similar to Sweden, Germany has been importing millions of migrants from nations in which women and girls are essentially kept (or even traded) as slaves — and their rape rate is exploding. Rather than curtailing this phenomenon, German officials are urging citizens to modify their behavior to avoid problems. In one incident, the principal of a public high school instructed parents to have their daughters “cover up” their skin on their way to and from school. Why? Because a migrant housing center was opening next to the school, and they wanted to avoid “misunderstandings.” In Germany.
Australia: After an explosion of migrant Muslims raping native Australian women and girls, officials and journalists asked the nation’s top imam if he would help them put a stop to it. His responded by blaming the situation on the victims: the fact that non-Muslim females were in public, while being covered from head to toe: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [the headdress worn by some Muslim women], no problem would have occurred.”
Throughout Europe: Amid the wave of refugees and migrants entering these free nations, a significant number of men, some elderly, are bringing with them one or more child brides, some as young as twelve-years-old, and the host governments are putting them all on welfare. And when taxpayers of those nations who believe girls should not be forced into marriage, those do not believe in polygamy, object to having to also pay to support them, they are called “racists,” “Islamophobes” and “greedy.”
What I think of, when I see the endless variety of women and girls, exercising and enjoying themselves, in freedom
As part of my occupation, I study these trends and their causes, and work to champion the cause of freedom — including for all females. See a major report I produced about the little known data concerning refugee crisis, here (special section regarding shariah and females in section 10):
Ten vital facts about the refugee crisis that every American should know
So when I work out in my health club, here in America, I occasionally find myself looking around me, with silent, joyful amazement. I also find myself wondering:
- How many of the females I see, so comfortable in their own “zones,” dressed the way they want, listening to music of their choice, enjoying life, are aware of how incredibly lucky they are to have been born here, instead of in any of the nations that systematically repress females just like them, according to shariah law?
- How many are aware that in Saudi Arabia, women are sentenced in courts to be whipped for the “crime” of being raped?
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Nehad Barkat, at age 17, after being rescued from ISIS rape slavery. How many are aware of the young ladies know of Nehad Barkat, the beautiful 18-year-old Yazidi girl who was captured by ISIS at age 15, and held as a rape slave for 15 months — all because of their religious beliefs?
- How many are aware of the estimated four thousand other Yazidi and Christian girls, some as young as nine years old, who are still held as rape slaves?
- How many are aware of the hundreds of females who either committed suicide to stop the unspeakable agony that those monsters inflicted upon them, or were killed trying to escape?
- How many are aware that Pakistan and Indonesia recently outlawed Valentine’s Day, because it “spreads corrupt Western values”?
- How many are aware of what is happening to girls and women around the world, even in “civilized” nations, not only because of such repressive ideologies, but because officials look the other way?
How could so few be aware of these facts? There is an answer. But to even discuss it, is to be called very nasty things — by the protesters, and their media enablers.
I would speculate that less than 1% of the females I observe are aware of these facts.
But how is this possible? How, Facebook-ized, Twitter-ized, 24-7 media-saturated world, in which a lion that was shot in Africa can capture the entire world’s attention, and generate such outrage, almost instantaneously?
The answer: because it has become very impolite (politically incorrect) to say anything about it, lest one be smeared as a “racist,” “Islamophobe,” or “hater.” Just as it has become impolite to question if we are doing enough to adequately screen refugees and immigrant applicants from these repressive nations — and even those coming from supposedly “free” nations.
So when I look around at my health club, it reminds me of how proud I am to live in a nation that respects these ladies’ rights to live, dress and exercise as they want, in safety and comfort, in public, and to enjoy their lives, as they wish. As they decide what to wear, what music to listen to, which classes to take, without asking anyone for permission.
They also don’t know because of those who claim to be “women’s rights” advocates, but are in fact apologists for shariah, and its worst atrocities
Some of these females, particularly the young, we also unknowingly seduced by charlatans, supposed defenders of women’s rights, who are actually apologists for shariah law, who claim that America and capitalism must be either destroyed or neutered, for “fairness” to reign.
One need look no further than the Orwellian spectacle of one of the most notorious apologists for shariah law, being selected to act as a top organizer and speaker, at the recent “March for Women.” And who actually tried to get “The Honor Diaries” banned in the U.S.
Conclusion
To know the reality of these matters, is to know why I love America, and consider my greatest good fortune to have been born on these shores, and to live under the United States Constitution.
Are there ways in which we can improve America? Absolutely. And I’m ready to have a civil, evidence-based discussion about those things, anytime.
But make no mistake: the bulk of the protesters who we see screaming the loudest about how America is so unfair to women, and who are rioting, attacking police officers, and burning stores, are not out to improve America. They are at war with America. Rather than helping to improve and build on our freedoms, and the Constitution that enables them, they are at war with these things, and hysterically spread the most incendiary lies imaginable about America, often in collusion with the most powerful media entities in existence. Their ultimate aim, as they have openly stated, is to tear America down, and remake it into a nation in which they will rule over all, imposing their will on all of us, under the banner of “liberating” us.
It’s them… or the truth. Only one will prevail.
Let us begin to tell the beautiful, magnificent story of America. Let us adopt Dr. Thomas Sowell’s approach to hearing criticisms of freedom, and of America, which he routinely answers with, “As compared to what?” One cannot really appreciate what America has accomplished, of the virtues of our nation and of the freedoms that are our birthright, and of the civility, tolerance and diversity we enjoy, until they compare it to how people in other nations are now forced to live.
Let us begin to stand proudly for the one nation on Earth that says, in essence, “Live your life, your way, under the protection of our government, which (at least according to its original stated intent) exists only to protect these, your natural rights.”
Let us begin to stand for, and with America.
This is the America I see, and the America I love, and for which I will fight until the end of my days.
This is also the America that Thomas Jefferson envisioned, which he described in the last letter he ever wrote, in which he described the Declaration of American Independence that he authored — and while acknowledging that his generation fell short of this vision, his hope that future Americans would work to fulfill it:
“[M]ay it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self government. that form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. all eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”
God bless America. God bless freedom. God bless equal rights. God bless capitalism.
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