Sunday, October 25, 2009

Progressive Logic Condemns Them All

I continue to be shocked that after 8 years of battling Islamic jihadis, much of the progressive world in the West can't bring itself to say aloud that Moslem terrorists are at war with us (and by "us" I mean anyone who is not a nutball jihadist--including the clear majority of Moslems who provide most of the victims of the jihadis). Sundry "youths" of this or that geographic place may be identified as the rioters or killers or beheaders or car torchers, but the religion is strangely not mentioned that often.

The reason, of course, is that our betters fear that the unwashed masses clinging to God and guns will get all riled up, grab a jug of 'shine and their favorite shotgun from Uncle Festus (who died defending his still in the Great Revenuer Raid of '97, God bless his soul), and go out for a fun night of Musselman Shootin'. Using the word "Moslem" might give our peasantry the idea that all Moslems are bombing and killing and celebrating our deaths. It reads better (and would run to 200 foot-noted pages) if written by a highly educated ethnic studies major, but that's the main point.

But that is insane logic. By this reasoning, our progressives are saying that any Moslem will be offended by noting that a particular Moslem is a jihadi motivated by their twisted view of Islam. And it assumes that our people are unable to distinguish the crimes and atrocities of a small subset of a group from the entire group--notwithstanding the fact that the American people have not retaliated against Moslems since 9/11 (or since the Persian Gulf War of 1991, for that matter, when the fear of "reprisals" against Moslem Arabs over our first war with Iraq was raised).

By failing to finger particular killers as Moslem--when it is pretty clear the killers are Moslem jihadis--our progressive media elites cannot fail to leave the impression with at least some viewers or readers that it is a touchy subject because any Moslem must naturally identify with particular criminal Moslems rather than being repulsed by what one nutball has done in all Moslems' names. It's like the media's refusal to see any member of the developing world as "authentic" unless they spew anti-American venom.

And by making jihad sympathy the default view of all Moslems, our media makes it difficult for non-violent Moslems to speak out publicly and consistently against the jihadis and marginalize them.

Our media and progressive elites believes it is dangerous to all Moslems to identify the people we fight as drawing their inspiration to kill us from Islam (albeit their twisted version of it). But their refusal to identify this subset simply tars all Moslems as complicit in the killing. We're not at war with all of Islam. Moslems are suffering the vast majority of the casualties from jihadi violence, for Pete's sake. But by their silence on the "M-word," our media and progressive elites don't seem to really believe that.