Restocking the Market

Reading and watching the news lately has brought two things to mind. One is a saying in education: For every step forward that a student takes, he takes two steps back once he is removed from the moment. The other is from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (Abrams v United States, 1919) in which he set the stage for what later became known as the "marketplace of ideas," a belief that truth or good policies always win out over lies or bad policies.

In November 2008 we took a major step forward, electing the first black President of the United States. This historic moment turned the world's eyes toward America in a positive way. The election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president seemed to announce that the ideas and principles the Founding Fathers set down more than two centuries ago had finally come true. America, it seemed, had fulfilled her promise.

But as we head into the midterm elections this year, we are slipping backward, falling behind even where we were some 21 months ago. The Tea Party has risen from the muck of the political arena, giving face, voice and comfort to so much that is wrong with America. Racist pandering and fear mongering has again replaced ideas and truth. We are seeing the nightmarish side of democracy, where fairness is trumped by political expediency.

Just look at several incidents across the country. Ron Ramsey, the Republican lieutenant governor trying to be governor of Tennessee, recently told an audience that Islam may be a cult. According to Ramsey, he wonders whether Islam "is actually a religion or is it a nationality, way of life or cult, whatever you want to call it."

In Gainesville, FL, the Dove World Outreach Center, a non-denominational church, has announced that the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks will be “International Burn a Koran Day.” The church’s pastor, Terry Jones, who is also the author of a book titled "Islam is of the Devil," said, “We feel, as Christians, one of our jobs is to warn,” according to an article by The Religion News Service. Jones added that the goal of these and other protests are to give Muslims an opportunity to convert, the news service reported.

Jones and his church are not alone. Ramsey's quote came on the same day as a protest against the building of a mosque outside the town of Murfreesboro, TN. A similar battle rages in New York City where Muslims hope to build a mosque in lower Manhattan, not that far from the former World Trade Center site.

It doesn't stop there. Conservative operatives disguised as journalist distributed misinformation about Shirley Sherrod, a black USDA official, in hopes of discrediting the NAACP and embarrassing the White House. The Tea Party in Iowa likened Obama to Hitler, while some of its followers have engaged in racially-motivated personal attacks on political leaders.

Amazingly, the hate mongers cite religion and the Founding Fathers when making their arguments. The idea that Christians, who protest over anything that they see as an attack on their religion, would even discuss burning the holy book of another religion is beyond the pale. Yet, it is what we have become -- a people blinded by hatred and poisoned by venom.

Each day we take another step back while the marketplace is flooded with tainted products. We can only hope that Holmes was right -- truth and good policies will eventually win out.