End the Islamist Epidemic in America

 

My slightly edited response to the New York Times front-page editorial:

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murders might have been prevented through improved gun laws. That is right and proper.

But new gun legislation does not matter to the dead in California, nor did it in Chattanooga, Boston, Garland, Fort Hood, New York City and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on platitudes and political correctness, excusing an ideology dedicated to the unfettered spread of ever more deadly terror attacks.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that Islamists can commit acts designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are acts of war, barely concealed and deliberately promoted as tools of religious intolerance and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for jihad’s victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on radical Islam, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about gun control. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, violent crime.

Apologists for Islamism are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific terrorist. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective terror prevention. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers launched attacks illegally in places like Israel that do have aggressive profiling of potential terrorists. Yes, they did.

But at least that country is trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating special hate speech protections for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of terrorist attacks, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large numbers of Islamist radicals.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Constitution. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of Islamists, like the poorly vetted killers in California, and certain kinds of jihadist activity, must be outlawed to protect civilians. It is possible to define those people in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who tolerate those kinds of people to stop making excuses for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

Published in Islamist Terrorism
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  1. No Caesar Thatcher
    No Caesar
    @NoCaesar

    Chris Campion:In the way that the NYT is now arguing that it’s time to collect 300 million guns from Americans, I wonder how they’ll be able to collect 300 million opinions, belief systems, and political leanings, so they all will now point the correct way, the NYT way?

    Hey, the Amendments are up for grabs. That’s what they’re arguing here. It’s only reasonable.

    They think they can round up 300 million guns, and yet they tell us that it is impossible to deport 11 million (or is it 30 million?) illegal aliens from the US.

    • #31
  2. Marion Evans Inactive
    Marion Evans
    @MarionEvans

    OkieSailor:

    Marion Evans:There was a time when this article would have been on the front page of the NY Times and the NY Times piece in some kooky underground paper.

    Are you implying that the NY Times is not today ‘some kooky underground paper’?

    Yes. Unfortunately, it is still widely read, though not as widely as in the past. Fact is we are here discussing it.

    • #32
  3. Jon Gabriel, Ed. Contributor
    Jon Gabriel, Ed.
    @jon

    Sorry, but I have had limited access to the Internet all day. Basically, all I did in this piece was copy the New York Times editorial verbatim, but replacing guns with Islamism. They claim their goal is to save lives, but gun-control will do no such thing.

    • #33
  4. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Bob Thompson:

    Rodin: Our leadership has to acknowledge that while all Muslims may not be Islamists, or that Islamism may not be Islamic, all Islamists identify as Muslims.

    Are there behaviors or practices that one can refer to as Islamic (broadly supported by Islamic adherents otherwise referred to as Muslims) that violate U.S. Constitutional concepts of individual rights?

    I prefer to think of the question (assuming I understand it) in the inverse: What Islamic behaviors and practices do not violate U.S. Constitutional concepts of individual rights? Since I am not an expert on Islam I am prepared to be corrected, but Islam does not seem to recognize the autonomy of individual conscience. Rather all individuals are to submit to Allah if they are to even live in this world much less suffer judgement in the next. Given that Islam does not see a utility in a separation of Allah and state, whenever the numbers of Muslims is sufficiently large, there are pressures brought to make the state conform to the dictates of Allah and wield authority against non-believers. There are many examples in the treatment of women, gays, infidels, et al. to demonstrate that some Muslims see their version of Islam to be inconsistent with our constitutional principles. I formulated the question in my post to give some space for an enlightened Islamic religion that can coexist with Judeo-Christian thinkers.

    • #34
  5. David Sussman Member
    David Sussman
    @DaveSussman

    Until U.S. leaders are more worried about the butchering of Americans rather than theoretical attacks on Muslims there is little to discuss.

    • #35
  6. Tom Riehl Member
    Tom Riehl
    @

    David Sussman:Until U.S. leaders are more worried about the butchering of Americans rather than theoretical attacks on Muslims there is little to discuss.

    Until we select leaders that are more worried about….there is little to discuss.

    • #36
  7. Stephen Bishop Inactive
    Stephen Bishop
    @StephenBishop

    According to wiki the US’s Muslim population is 1%.

    My guess is this will double every 7 years and in about 30 years it’ll have reached 10%. This is when it become critical. There will me Muslim communities electing on Muslims. Sharia Law will be enforced. They will be sending for spouses from the Muslim world and this will be the start of the big change.

    What are we going to do about it?

    • #37
  8. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Constitution. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

    This sentence alone, if not all the other idiotic ones in the editorial, ought to make every citizen take notice. They’re calling the words of the founders “peculiar” in order to set them up to be disregarded and discarded. “Not necessary to debate”?? End of discussion because our intellectual betters have decreed it? Really, NYT? “No right is immune”?? Wake up, people. This is the result of viewing the Constitution as a “living, breathing document” subject to the vagaries of trendy social fads. And by the way, NYT Editorial Board who think you’re our intellectual betters, some of us just might be better educated than you are and we might even have higher IQs. We are watching.

    Oh, and we know perfectly well that this is far from the first time you’ve editorialized on your front page. It’s only the first time you’ve admitted it. I wouldn’t even line a birdcage with it. I hope Jon Gabriel sends his fine rebuttal to them for publication.

    • #38
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