Today in Bigotry

The Swiss ban minarets. Sully writes:

Why not synagogues? Or did a neighboring country try that already? It's hard to think of a gesture more useless with respect to a real problem - integration of Muslim immigrants - or clumsier as a way to provoke religious hostility and intolerance and thereby further radicalize Swiss Muslims. But it is a useful reminder that religious liberty and toleration have roots that are not so deep in Europe.

Too right. Ditto the prevailing political winds in France that lead to things like banning Muslim religious dress in public. It's a useful reminder that for all the love progressives heap on the European public sector, much of its success is predicated on a level of racial homogeneity that just doesn't happen in the U.S.

Which leads one to wonder, what if the highest-profile consumers of Swiss public goods were Muslims? Would we see a populist, racist movement against providing public services, like the one we struggle against in the U.S.? My guess is yes.

update: Nate Silver asks the same question:

But it's also interesting to consider whether such a ban would pass in the United States. Suppose that the Muslim population were three to four times higher here, making it comparable to the levels in Northern Europe. Suppose that the Muslim minority had started to become a bit more assertive, generally deciding not to pursue a goal of integrating itself into society, and perhaps leading to some relatively minor, but much-ballyhooed, incidents of violence. Suppose that these adherents had started to build a fair number of minarets in smaller towns and suburbs. And suppose that some enterprising, right-of-center party had politicized the issue, and found some loophole by which such construction could be banned by ballot referendum without Constitutional challenge. Would such a ban win majority approval?

I (and Nate) say no. Respect for religious freedom runs pretty deep in this country, and one would have to assume that the immediate aftermath of 9/11 would be the best possible political climate for moves in the direction of curtailing the rights and practices of the Islamic community. Thankfully, nothing like that really materialized. Whether you want to hold up our (relative) restraint as an example of American tolerance or be cynical and put the kudos on the status-quo bias of our system of government is up to you.