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I hail from the great state of Colorado. Although Colorado is without question the best place in the world (Okay, that's just Coloradian exceptionalism.), there happen to be a few flaws with the state as well. Any resident of Colorado can tell you about the oddities of the city of Boulder such as the tree-huggers and the penis sculptures in the public library. Another situation that I have to deal with in this state is one of the federal congressman, Tom Tancredo.

I wasn't to happy with Tancredo because of his policies on immigration. I've heard all of the arguments about immigration: immigration brings destruction of American culture, immigration brings destruction of the English language, immigration brings crime, immigration leads to unemployment of Americans (which confuses me because aren't people who legally immigrate to the United States Americans? So, I assume that the definition of American is a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant.), immigration leads to environmental destruction… It seems to me that all of these reasons deal with either American exceptionalism or racism.

Now, I have a whole new reason to hate Tancredo's policies. Going through my RSS feeds, I came across an article on CNN: “Congressman: Mecca a possible retaliation target”.¹ After reading about a local, Colorado congressman talking about nuking Mecca, I was a bit pissed off. In my opinion, it's talk like this that causes people to hate the United States.

Tancredo's reasoning for destroying Mecca is the thought of targeting what extremest, Islamic terrorists find precious. Of course, there is a flaw in his logic, but to call it a flaw is an understatement: not all Muslims are terrorists. After all, not all Whites are members of the Ku Klux Klan. So, the thought of destroying a city considered sacred to millions for the actions of Al-Qaeda is clearly… stupid. Plus, as it seems obvious to me, using nuclear weapons to destroy a city where people (who are not terrorists, by the way) live is also… stupid.

Now, the opinions of billions of people who actually don't live in the United States whose opinions matter just as much as the proportionally less than a billion people who do live in the United States will be affected by a single statement made by a single congressman. In my mind, there are three things that can be done:

1. Write to the Saudi Embassy in Washington about your opinions in the matter. I have just expressed on their contact form my thoughts on the subject.
2. Write Tancredo and tell him your thoughts on the issue or other issues.
3. Don't reelect Tancredo. If the fact that my not being over twenty-five years of age were irrelevant, I would seriously consider running against Tancredo in the next election. It's people like him that make people in other places hate America.

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1. http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/18/congressman.muslims.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories