America the Beautiful

I really loved a lot of the thing D'souza has to say about America. I sometimes feel like we live in a country that hates itself but D'souza argues that it is because as a country we lack self-confidence. Part of that does lie in the fact that most American's are in pursuit of the greater good. We constantly question whether or not we are doing the right thing locally, nationally, and internationally.There are not many other countries that do that. D'souza says at one point "compulsion cannot produce virtue". That is so true, doing something because it is required is totally different than doing something because it is simply the right thing to do. With all that being said, I feel like D'souza stated a lot of personal opinion in this peice. I'm not sure if this was taken out of a larger text or what, but I felt like D'souza opened up a few cans of worms with some seemingly biased statements that could have been given some back up. There were little to know references to credible sources to back up a lot of his statements about the Muslim world. I do like how he differentiates between fundamentalist Islamic extremism and other, more liberal Muslims. One of the greatest pet peeves of my friend from Saudi Arabia is when people assume that all Muslims hate America. She is Muslim and she was born in the middle east. She loves her homeland and her faith but considers herself half American too. She loves America and everything it stands for and so do a lot of her friends and family. I hate when people assume that Muslims as a whole hate America and view us infidels with a mission to corrupt the world. That would be like saying all Mormons are like the Fundamentalist LDS, Or that all Christians are like the Amish. All in all, this was not my favorite reading, but I like the way D'souza makes me feel about America and I like the fact that he doesn't label the entire middle east as a bunch of America haters out to destroy all freedom.