America the Beautiful

Dinesh D'Souza's America the Beautiful: What We're Fighting For is a detailed look into why the fundamentalist Islamic culture despises the American dream so much. I enjoyed reading this article although I had some varying opinions from the author's because I learned more about the Islamic culture. I think it is widely unknown as to why groups under the Islamic culture dislike the American lifestyle so badly. I thought it was very open minded of D'Souza to go into great detail as to why even though D'Souza has great pride in the United States way of life. What I thought was interesting is that D'Souza points out that the Islamic world has not had a great revolution like America has, and we're relatively shorter living than the Islamic culture. America has experienced the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution in just over two hundred short years. Interestingly enough, at one time the Islamic world was thought to have been powerful enough to take over the entire world, which also explains theire resentment towards America and our "lower" standards according to them. It was very open minded for D'Souza to note that the Islamic culture is in a sense the complete opposite to ours where they believe in no liberty to the people, and we believe in liberty to all people. In America we give every citizen-man, child, woman the right to choose their own path in life, where in a traditional Islamic culture the man is the ruler of the household and government. It is easier to see why Islamic cultures believe that the liberty we allow our citizens in America contributes to the demise of the rest of the world. Why I believe terrorist groups such as Al Queda have been created is to take down cultures and figures such as in America because they realize the impact or universalism we have on other foreign countries. It's difficult for me to be one sided on this issue, because there is a lot about the American culture that I would like to see change-for instance, the over consumerism of food and resources, the outrageous salary and celebrity we give to athletes and movie stars, and the lack of education in public and college school systems, and the overabundance of credit have all contributed to the downfall of our country currently. These are all factors that I believe are contributing to our downfall, and are viewed as disgusting by the rest of the world. As D'Souza points out towards the end of the piece, I would rather live in a country that promotes the liberty of every citizen, rather than live in a country that uses terror and death to control it's people.