Living In Constant Irrational Fear, or The Decline of Western Culture

The bigotry and aggressive ignorance born of our ridiculous culture of fear and militarism continues to grow and grow. A Hasidic Jewish man was recently kicked off of a flight to New York City for praying, supposedly because the airline had received "numerous" complaints about his behavior. Possibly the most disgusting aspect was revealed by this account of the incident:

"The attendant actually recognized out loud that he wasn't a Muslim and that she was sorry for the situation but they had to ask him to leave."

So not only was this man kicked off of a flight for doing absolutely nothing that could reasonably be seen as threatening (i.e. praying silently to himself), the attendant found it necessary to relate that because he wasn't a Muslim, no one really thought that he posed any threat. As we all know, if he was a Muslim, he would certainly have been preparing to blow himself up because all Muslims -- not a tiny, tiny percentage of extremist Muslims that amounts to far less than 1 percent of all Muslims in the world -- are dangerous and suicidal. (/sarcasm) Exactly how ignorant and terrified were these people to complain about such obviously harmless behavior? Living so long under the constant fear-mongering, hateful rhetoric, and militarism of the Bush administration (and many other Western governments) is having a serious toll on our society.

That behavior like this has become commonplace and even largely accepted is disgusting and unacceptable. Our tenuous, slipping hold on global hegemony and the constant decline and degradation of our culture are more and more prominently displayed every day. Whether or not this decline can be stopped or reversed, only time will tell, however it seems now as if most people are content with the ever-worsening state of our culture.