Two hundred and fifty-one years ago, Patrick Henry stood before the Second Virginia Convention with a problem that probably sounds familiar. Too many people were looking at what they hoped Britain would do instead of what Britain was actually doing.
“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth,” he told them.
We still do it. We reassure ourselves that everything will work out. The warnings are overblown. People are overreacting…being dramatic. Whatever happened somewhere else could never happen here. Henry had a name for that: the “illusions of hope.”
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided,” he said, “and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.”
He said that in 1775. We’ve had 251 years more worth of evidence.
And we have plenty of it. Countries don’t have to send an army across your border to influence what happens inside it. There aren’t redcoats marching toward Richmond anymore. Money crosses borders. So does propaganda. A foreign government can pour billions of dollars into American institutions without taking a single inch of American land.
Islamists haven’t exactly been quiet about what they believe.
All you have to do is listen to what they say about Sharia, apostasy, blasphemy, women, Jews, dogs, religious minorities, free speech, and the authority of religion over government.
Henry asked whether his countrymen would be among those who, “having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not.” Why are we so determined not to hear what’s being said plainly?
Speaking up has gotten expensive. Ask the wrong question, and suddenly the question isn’t the issue anymore. You are. The accusation of Islamophobia has been used to bully and intimidate people into silence over legitimate questions about Islamism, foreign influence, extremist organizations, religious law, and who is funding whom. Call someone a bigot, and you may never have to answer what they asked.
Henry warned his fellow Americans not to be “betrayed with a kiss.” Forget what they say for a minute and look at what they actually do. Follow the money and read what organizations publish. Listen to their leaders.
Meanwhile, we have Jewish Americans thinking twice before being visibly Jewish in public. Online, history is being rewritten while we watch. Some people self-sensor because they know certain questions can cost them friends, jobs, invitations, or reputations. At some point we really need to ask ourselves how much we’re willing to ignore because saying anything might get us called something ugly.
America has always welcomed people. We’re a melting pot. Keep the language you spoke with your mother, your food, music, holidays, family stories, and faith. Build your churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples.
But here’s the thing…you came to America. America didn’t come to you. You don’t get to bring the government you left behind and try to rebuild it here. You don’t get to place religious law above civil law or tell your neighbor that your God governs his conscience. In America, the Constitution is the law. It’s how people who believe completely different things manage to live together.
Religious authority doesn’t take precedence over American law. Criticism of a religion should never be silenced because someone finds it offensive. We’re allowed to say no. And when the answer to our questions is “Islamophobia,” we’re allowed to keep asking them.
“When shall we be stronger?” Will we be stronger after another twenty years of foreign money moving through American institutions? After another generation learns everything America has done wrong but almost nothing about why people still risk their lives to come here? After Americans become so afraid of saying the wrong thing that silence is easier than telling the truth?
Henry believed he was running out of peaceful choices. We aren’t. We can vote and investigate. We can follow the money, enforce our laws, secure our borders, and expose foreign influence. We can challenge an ideology without surrendering the freedoms we’re trying to protect. We still have the First Amendment, and we should use it.
Near the end of his speech, Henry asked whether life was so dear or peace so sweet that either should be purchased at the price of chains. We aren’t standing in the same spot he was…we still have peaceful choices.
Henry was willing “to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and provide for it.”
So should we be.
