Freedom of religion is quite a different thing from freedom to be a terrorist. That’s the lesson that an Army private demonstrated in front of the cameras of the What Would You Do? show in Kingston, New York when two actors playing a cashier and a bigot tried to stage an incident of religious prejudice.
As the unnamed serviceman proves, it’s important to remember that American values don’t mean targeting people because of their faith — when President Trump talks about “radical Islamic terrorism,” the key word to remember is “radical.”
People who are radicalized have no respect for the rights of others, whether those rights include the right to practice religion freely (typically, members of ISIS, for example, kill members of other religions, such as Christians) or the right to free speech. Americans in the armed forces have fought and died to protect these rights, and they’re a great deal of what makes America unique and strong in the world today.
So long as a person isn’t offending or harming another individual with their faith, it isn’t right to attack or impugn them. Not all people of the Muslim faith are supportive or sympathetic to extremists. In fact, many of the victims of Islamic radicals — even in Western terror attacks such as the one that occurred in Nice, France in 2016 — are Muslim themselves. This goes to show that these extremists have no respect for people’s rights, whether those rights are guaranteed under our Constitution or those of other countries. Watch as a patriotic American soldier sets a good example for others to follow in this praiseworthy clip.
