Charlie Kirk and the American Apocalypse

When does civil war become necessary?

I somehow missed Kurt Schlichter's American Apocalypse when it came out in July.  I only discovered it after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.  In the novel, both Trump and Vance are assassinated, and the book is basically about what happens afterwards, up to and including a second American civil war.

But the parallels between the plot of the novel and what we have seen after the murder of Charlie Kirk are eerie.

I noticed the first parallel long before the Kirk assassination.  And that is the sheer number of Americans, of all political stripes, who are just not paying attention.  To the extent they vote, and many people who do not pay attention, do in fact vote, they simply vote for their party's candidate de rigueur.

Both in the novel and by long standing custom, everyone the left disapproves of is a fascist or a Nazi.  And anyone with ideas that the left does not want to hear, and importantly, does not want others to hear, is an insurrectionist.  Obviously.

In the novel, the left celebrated the assassinations of Trump and Vance.  Just as many people of the left celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk.  As I said at the time, they were giddy.

If you do away with merit, replacing it with some form of non-merit based system, you can expect incompetence.  And if you then have the incompetents focus their attention, and everyone else's attention, on non-mission focused objectives and psychopathic delusions, the mission will fail.  We saw this in Schlichter's book as well as in the Biden government.  God knows we will see it again when the left inevitably retakes power.

I note one other point the novel makes:  When the war started, we really didn’t know it was a war.  It was more like a mass riot, except bloodier. (Page 245)  I think this is an interesting point.  Will the shooting war begin as armed city rioters, who are really hoodlums, shooting at various forms of federal law enforcement?  Say this breaks out in twenty cities...is that a war?  And what if, like Chicago and Portland, you have the governors and the mayors egging them on?  I don't know; maybe something to watch for.

Personally, I believe that it will be a civil war when the president tries to nationalize a state national guard, and the governor and his commanders refuse.  I think that is a pretty good litmus test of the definition of civil war.  Reasonable people might disagree with this as a definition, but what if it is more than one state?  I am open to a more transparent definition, but this time it is not going to be a clean North/South secessionist divide.  It is going to be murky.

Now, what about guns?  Make no mistake, leftists love guns.  All types and sizes of guns.  Much more than any conservatives ever will.  But with two caveats.  One, that government has a monopoly on guns, and two, that they control government.  This way, they control all the guns and they can disavow guns at the same time.  Gun control is a moral-sounding, virtue-signaling, propagandistic method of insuring that people on the right do not have access to guns, but people on the left, including criminals, do.

Finally, I have to add that I am not the greatest fan of Schlichter's novels.  They read like comic books.  Or maybe more accurately, as young adult novels.  But I continue to read Schlichter because his works are so on point.  No one else, that I am aware of, is even close to his perception of the danger we are in as a perilously politically divided nation.

Plus I think he correctly captures the attitude and goals that American leftists truly hold.  And I believe he is correct in his assessment of what they would do with unbridled power.  We know this is true because they would have gleefully imprisoned Donald Trump.  Of course, back in power, they will gleefully imprison you and me.

They do not care about people or policy.  No matter what they say or how much they preach.

They only care about power.

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The Attack, by Kurt Schlichter

An Hamas-style attack on America

Yesterday, this site featured a new film that everyone should see.  Today, we bring you a new book that everyone should read.

The Attack, by Kurt Schlichter ★★★★★ Kurt Schlichter (Self published) 7 January 2024 336 pages Fiction $ 24.24 (Hardcover) $ 16.27 (Paperback) $  6.99 (Kindle) * Prices accurate on date of this post.

Schlichter sets the book in late August 2024.  But the truth is, this could happen any day now.  And while this book is fiction, the events it describes will absolutely happen unless the United States returns to a secure border policy, and a common sense immigration policy.  And what are the chances of that?

It's a great book and certainly worth reading.  But I disagree with one of the central themes of the book.  Schlichter believes that if the US is attacked in such a manner, the average citizen will fight back.  Or at least, enough of them will fight back.  But after the incredibly meek response by these same citizens during the Covid lockdowns and mandates, I just cannot agree with him.  Sadly, as we have seen, Americans have become sheep.  And they will be led to the slaughter.

Even more recently, look how people, especially younger left-of-center types (and even the police), have reacted to the Hamas supporters across the West.  Again, meekly.  In the US, they have a First Amendment right to say what they want.  But student visas and such could be revoked.  The FBI could monitor Dearborn radicals like it monitors conservative Catholics.  But in fact, the current administration panders to Muslims.

And as I have written before, if the federal government initiates gun registrations or confiscation, how will most people react?  Let's say for example, in a Kamala Harris or Michelle Obama administration.  My guess:  Compliantly.  In any case, this is one reason I think Schlichter set the book so soon in the future – to ensure that a lot of citizens still had firearms.  And his theory that people would be willing to use them makes for a great story.  I enjoyed it anyway.  But it is fiction.

I think Schlichter would argue the point with me.  And I hope I am wrong.  Though I will add this, if we altered his story just a bit, and the terrorists only attacked blue states (rather than all states as set out in the book), would the outcome not be vastly different?  The terrorists could still do tremendous damage and without being immediately gunned down.

I would like to share two passages from the book.  The first describes woke progressive students and academics, and their attitude towards the Palestinian/Hamas attack on Israel:

It meant that rape and torture and murder were allowed if the right oppressed people did it to the right oppressors.

Schlichter adds:  And they made it clear that this moral construct applied to America as well.  I had not thought about it in such stark and extreme terms, but clearly this is correct.  Remember, the progressives revere Marx and Che Guevara, not Gandhi or even Martin Luther King, Jr.

Second, describing Islamist terrorists:

Some people try to call it madness.  It is not.  Do not think of them as insane.  That gives them a moral pass for choosing a barbaric moral framework.  They are not mad.  They are evil.  And they are usually fully prepared to die in perpetuating their evil, either from pride or what we see as ridiculous promises of paradise with their virgins and so forth.

The only thing I could possibly add is that a good number of ordinary Muslims share that barbaric moral framework even if they do not act on it.  Their religion is not like other religions, and until we accept this reality, we will not be able to counter it.  They do not have a Live and let live mentality.  They certainly do not have a Golden Rule mentality.  Rather their's is the mentality of ancient Arabian raiders:  Convert, submit, or die.  And this novel is a manifestation of that injunction.

Finally, let me say this about Schlichter's ending where the United States bombs Iran, expels all illegal immigrants, kills the Mexican cartels, and builds a serious border wall with a serious border protection force.  What would it take for that to happen?  Under any administration?  In his novel, the terrorists kill 162,172 Americans.  I think that number is correct.  It would take near-about that many dead Americans for our government to do its job, and take proper and responsible actions to protect the country.

How sad is that?

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A Vision For Our Future

The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale:  A Political Fable For Our Time

George C. Leef

★★★★☆

Bombardier Books

4 March 2022

268 pages

Fiction

$ 17.99 (Paperback)

$  9.99 (Kindle)

* Prices accurate on date of this post.

George Leef calls this book a political fable.  My guess is because he has exaggerated the current and coming danger in order to make his points.  But I would have preferred if he labeled it a vision.  A Political Vision for Our Future would make a better subtitle.

Here's the scenario he lays before us:

1. The Left gains control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, including both houses of Congress.
2. The senate completely ends the filibuster.
3. Both the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are admitted to the Union as our 51st and 52nd states, adding four reliably Democratic seats to the senate.
4. Congress passes a law raising the number of Supreme Court justices to fourteen and
5. The president quickly nominates five additional justices and they are just as quickly confirmed.
6. The Left then proposes one absurd law after another, which Congress passes, the president signs, and the Supreme Court declares constitutional.

Think about that.  What would happen to our country?

Well I will tell you what would happen.  The same thing that is going on now, only faster.  This book is a vision of the future in fast forward.  If you don't like the direction of this country, the slow but never-ending leftward drift, often nudged and occasionally shoved, you will really find this book depressing.  And worse, after the last few years, can we doubt that any of the above is possible?

Leef's book highlights the immorality of the leadership of the Left.  Notably their sheer lust for power.  Mind you, not the power to make the world a better place.  But rather power for their own benefit and to satisfy their need to be in control of others.  Leef points out that, for all their hand-wringing, the Left actually cares very little about policy.  They only care about policy insofar as it helps them achieve and maintain power.  They certainly don't care about the long term effects and consequences of their policies.  History has proven this time and again; there is no reason to assume the future will be any different.

The book includes the media and the journalists who cover for those same lefty politicians.  Note, not cover them, but cover for them.  As Glenn Reynolds says, they are political operatives with bylines.  It includes the naive, useful idiots who support the politicians, either because they actually believe the propaganda or because they are looking for something for themselves.  Finally, the book includes a cast of characters representing the millions of Americans who are hurt by the progressive sham, often with little or no recourse.  The result of course is an America that is grinding to a halt.

The book ends with the redemption of the protagonist.  And the fable ends with an antidote.  But here I agree, it really is a fable.  In time, this is a vision which will absolutely come true.  But it's like a terminal disease, there will be no antidote forthcoming.

Only misery.

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Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Lost in Wokeness

What?  Your middle-schooler did not read Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?

Neither did mine.  Isn't that sad?  At one time, this charming story was included in the canon of every well-educated childhood.

But it is just about everything our woke educators hate.  It was written, of course, by a dead, white, male.  An Englishman and a colonialist.  Not only is the story colonialist, but like much of Kipling's work, it is set in India.  And perhaps worst of all, it is an unapologetic tale of good versus evil.  And of good vanquishing evil.

No doubt, our teachers have replaced it with something more appropriate.  

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is now in the public domain.  So I include it here.

If you are interested, here is a sample of how the story was once taught.

Also, I have added a Lost in Wokeness section to the sidebar.  That should be fun.

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The Most Courageous Person Alive

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the most courageous person living in the world today.

If you don't know her story, you should Google her.  In 2004, she wrote the text for the short film Submission.  The film's director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered several days after its release.  His assassin left a letter threatening Hirsi Ali pinned with a knife to the dead van Gogh.  You can't make this stuff up.

And yet, Hirsi Ali has continued to write about and speak out about Islam.  Here she sits down with Dave Rubin.

It is rather refreshing to go from writing about the low integrity experience of working at Amazon to sharing this video of the person who is setting the global standard for high integrity today.  If you like this video, here she is talking with Bari Weiss.  Here she is with Ben Shapiro.  All three of these conversations are worth your time.

Hirsi Ali has a new book out, Prey:  Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights.

Let me quote from the book's Amazon page:

Why are so few people talking about the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities?  No one in a position of power wants to admit that the problem is linked to the arrival of several million migrants — most of them young men — from Muslim-majority countries.

I have read all of her other work.  Just ordered this one.  She is one of those people who make you ask:  My God, what am I doing with myself?  What have I contributed?

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The Competent Broker has been published

Click to find The Competent
Broker at Amazon.com

The Competent Broker:  Seeking Competence and Integrity in the Real Estate Business

The Competent Broker has just been published on Amazon, in both paperback and Kindle eBook formats.

The Competent Broker  Competence is a choice.  In the business of real estate brokerage, this is an absolute.  Brokers have a duty to their clients to be competent.  A duty of competence.  So competence is a character trait and a function of integrity.  It is not that brokers choose to be incompetent.  But they do choose to focus their attention elsewhere.  Competence simply falls by the wayside.  Unnoticed and unattended.

The purpose of this book is to help readers find and identify competence and integrity in an often murky and counterintuitive business.  We start with Competence is a Choice and a Code of Competent Conduct, which we expand into sections on Brokers, Buyers & Sellers, Fees & Business Models, Marketing, and Negotiation.

   

There are a few different and sometimes overlapping potential audiences:  People thinking about entering the real estate market either as new buyers or sellers, or perhaps those with a less than ideal experience in the past.  People thinking about getting a real estate license or newly-minted brokers just finding your way.  And finally, disaffected brokers seeking a better way.

Visit my Competent Broker page for a chapter-by-chapter summary.

I look forward to your comments and questions.

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Notes on The Smallest Minority

Excerpts and Observations

In regard to politics, I have always considered myself a member of a tiny minority.  A minority of exactly one.  For all of the political parties in the United States, the two dominant parties as well as the smaller ones, there are aspects of their respective platforms that simply preclude my membership.  They all have some ideal or ideals that I cannot endorse and often find loathsome.

Further, I have found that political independents are not able to look to other independents for similar ideals or community.  To borrow from Tolstoy, political party members are all alike; every political independent is independent in his own way.  Every nonconformist is nonconformist in his own way.

So it is with this background that I come to Kevin Williamson's The Smallest Minority.  By title alone, it seems, finally, someone has written a book for me.  And perhaps for you, if you are a member of, as Williamson puts it, "the smallest minority - the only one who matters:  the individual."

Williamson defines individual as, "one who can stand at least partly away from the demands of his tribe and class and try to see things as they are, and shout back over his shoulder what he sees."  Yeah okay, sure.  But I don't think that Williamson is an independent in my sense above.  He says that he is not a Republican, but he seems to be a Christian conservative.  He is certainly independent in the sense that he works in the overwhelmingly left-leaning media.  But a more honest subtitle for this book might have been:  Conservative Survival in the Age of the Left-Wing Digital Mob.  Sure, I might still have picked it up, but no doubt he wanted to appeal to the broadest possible book-buying public.

So whether or not Williamson considers himself an independent, he certainly considers himself an independent thinker - It's right there in the subtitle.  But then, doesn't everyone.  There is this nugget:  "People who dedicate their lives to finding idols before which they may abase themselves—the cult of inter-sectionality, identity politics, the Make America Great Again jihad, race and/or sex and other demographic features, nationalism, socialism, the Democratic party, the Republican party, organized homosexuality, the Bernie Sanders movement, animal rights, veganism, Crossfit, whatever —cannot abide the presence of those who decline to abase themselves before that idol or, short of that, any idol."  As for religious types, Williamson adds, "True believers believe truly, and what they hold in common isn’t that which they believe but that they believe."

I have found this to absolutely true.  Presbyterians may well understand and tolerate the Methodists, the Catholics, and even the Muslims, but they have an exceedingly hard time with the atheists.  If you cannot be in our corner, at least be in some easily-discernible corner.  

Williamson describes his subject as, "mob politics, on social media and in what passes for real life, which increasingly is patterned on social media—and its effects on our political discourse and our culture...We think in language. We signal in memes.  Language is the instrument of discourse.  Memes are the instrument of antidiscourse, i.e., communication designed and deployed to prevent the exchange of information and perspectives rather than to enable it, a weapon of mass intellectual destruction"...The function of discourse is to know other minds and to have them known to you; the function of antidiscourse is to lower the status of rivals and enemies."

Balm and Benison

*** Click if not crisp ***

From:  Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography, 1898.

Though I first encountered this term in The Jewel That Was Ours, 1991, by Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse Series).

From the Oxford English Dictionary:
balm (noun):  6. A healing, soothing, or softly restorative, agency or influence.
benison (noun):  1. A blessing.

I have included a full definition of balm and benison in the lexicon.
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Andrew McCarthy: The Grand Jihad

I have just started reading Andrew McCarthy's The Grand Jihad.  I was almost immediately disappointed:

So is it wrong, then, to shrink from the conclusion that the real problem is Islam?...Hair-splitting between "Islamism" and "Islam" runs the risk of doing exactly what we must avoid doing:  minimizing the challenge confronting us and suggesting that there is a vibrant, preponderant "Islam," markedly different from purportedly aberrant "Islamism," that somehow does not see sharia-imposition as obligatory.  In my heart of hearts, I don't believe this is true.

Yet, that is exactly what McCarthy immediately goes on to do:

The stubborn fact remains that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who either do not wish to live under the tyranny of sharia or are so indifferent that, even if they would abide by sharia in a Muslim country where it applies, they do not support converting non-Muslim societies into sharia enclaves.  What are we to do about them?  Are we to tell them they are wrong, that their only alternative is to renounce Islam--even those who live in fundamentalist societies where the penalty for apostasy is death?  Are we to give those people no place to go?

McCarthy acknowledges that what he labels Islamists, "may substantially outnumber our potential allies in the umma."  And he goes on:

We should reserve the designation "Islam" in the hope that tolerant voices can redeem it, but our defense must never be hostage to that hope, which may, after all, be futile.

As he seems to acknowledge, this is purely wishful thinking.  So why does he insist on making the distinction?  Well, I think to incentivize or encourage or allow for some type of Islamic reformation.  Which perhaps, he views as more likely if the adherents can continue to think of themselves as Muslims.

While I think I understand his rational, I find it unrealistically optimistic and even counterproductive.  We will never defeat that which we are afraid to name.  Let's be clear, while there may well be moderate Muslims, there is certainly no moderate Islam.  We cannot wish it into existence.  So to answer McCarthy's question:  Are we to give those people no place to go?

Well, word games will not suffice.  The problem is not Islamism.  The problem is Islam.  Of course those people should renounce Islam.

By not rejecting Islam, so-called moderate Muslims give tacit approval to Islamic doctrine and to their co-religionists who are less reticent to follow it.  With his semantic construct, McCarthy lets them off the hook for this.  It is a mistake.  If we do not imbue Islam with the negative connotation it so richly deserves, Muslims will have no incentive to decamp.  The problem, of course, is that there are 1.4 billion Muslims of varying stripes and the overwhelming majority of them will never abandon their ideology.  It is a problem without a recognized solution.  (I advocate containment a la George Kennan)  But in any case, it does us no good whatsoever to sweep it under Orwell's rug.

For much more sober views on moderate Islam, see Bruce Bawer, Hugh Fitzgerald, and Sam Harris.

I'm eleven chapters into The Grand Jihad, and other than the semantic confusion, I have found it quite illuminating.  But I would be far more sympathetic to his above premise if McCarthy drew distinctions between his two degrees of Islam.  So far, he does not.  He talks exclusively about Islamism and Islamists.  But to my ear, it sure sounds like just plain Islam.  So every time McCarthy uses the terms Islamism or Islamist, I have to replace them with Islam or Muslim.  It's annoying.

~~~

Finally, at the end of chapter twelve, on page 212, McCarthy, for the first time, does make a distinction between the views of (moderate) Muslims and Islamists.  He contrasts their attitudes on Obama's Muslim heritage:  Moderates "figure being born a Muslim should be irrelevant if one never makes an adult choice to embrace the religion."  As opposed to Islamists who "believe that all humans, regardless of parentage, are called to Islam at birth."  While statistics or polling on the prevailing Muslim attitude on this question would be appreciated, I will welcome more such distinctions reading forward.

At the end of chapter fifteen, McCarthy finally addresses what is to my mind the real problem, mainstream Islam:

First, while Obama is living proof that it is possible to ignore Islamic doctrine's causative connection to terrorism, it is not possible credibly to deny that connection.  Therefore, the need to deal with Islam is unavoidable--not because it is an asset, but because it's a liability that can't be written off.

Second, there can be no peace unless Islam reforms.  For there to be peace, Islam must purge its savage elements...and it must compellingly condemn the violence committed in its name.  This cannot be done, as Obama and others would like to do it, by telling Muslims everything is fine, that their religion is just peachy as is....This approach does nothing to discredit Islamists and Islamist terrorists in the eyes of other Muslims.  In fact, it enhances their credibility because it ignores their doctrinal justifications of terror rather than offering a credible counter-construction.

Worse, as we've observed, it may well be that there is no credible counter-construction of Islam.  In that case, there is a gargantuan amount of reform to be done by Muslims.  They are the ones who believe that there is something in Islam so worth preserving that it's better to fight than switch.  We cannot rouse them to the task by telling them, as American presidents have been wont to tell them, that we think Islam, as it currently exists, is promoting peace.

But the question is:  Do vast majorities of Muslims have the will, or even the inclination, to accept such "counter-constructions" or reform?  Again, this is ignoring reality.  This is holding ourselves hostage to hope.
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Wafa Sultan: A God Who Hates

Wafa Sultan writing in her new book, A God Who Hates:

For me, understanding the truth about the thought and behavior of Muslims can only be achieved though an in-depth understanding of [the] philosophy of raiding that has rooted itself firmly in the Muslim mind.  Bedouins feared raiding on the one hand, and relied on it as a means of livelihood on the other.  Then Islam came along and canonized it.  Muslims in the twenty-first century still fear they may be raided by others and live every second of their lives preparing to raid someone else.  The philosophy of raiding rules their lives, the way they behave, their relationships, and their decisions.
Page 66

The status of women in Muslim countries is a human catastrophe that the world has ignored for centuries and for which it is now paying a high price for ignoring.  An oppressed and subjugated woman cannot give birth to an emotionally and mentally well-balanced man.  The invisible Muslim woman has been and continues to be the hen who incubates the eggs of terrorism and provides them with the necessary warmth to hatch the terrorists.
Page 135

Whatever has been said in the past and will be said in the future about the role of television in shaping a person's convictions, I do not believe that it has played or ever will play as important a role as books do.  And this is even truer when the book in question is a religious one, and when it is the sole source of knowledge for people who are bedazzled by reading it.
Page 165

It is difficult, if not impossible, to have a healthy relationship with another person if you are suspicious of his or her intentions.  No Muslim, no matter how well educated, no matter how outwardly accepting of others he may be, can free himself completely of his suspicions when circumstances bring him into contact with [Christians and Jews].  He is quite convinced that he cannot have a real friendship with anyone who does not accept Muhammad as a divinely inspried prophet.
Page 194

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Rosenberg on Journalist versus Bloggers

Scott Rosenberg offers an extended excerpt from his new book on the rise of blogging, Say Everything.

Chapter Nine:
Journalists versus Bloggers

My take:  Traditional journalists with their press passes, phony neutrality, and monopoly on the public narrative, showered bloggers with invective, condescension, derision, and ridicule.

Rosenberg argues that traditional journalism was not objective about the rise of blogging.  They were too dismissive to be objective.  He does not, however, challenge traditional journalism's self-proclaimed objectivity itself.  To be fair, this is probably beyond the scope of his book.  But he goes on to point out that traditional journalists often lack the time, interest, or expertise to properly report on given issues.  Note this problem existed long before the internet.  Bloggers just helped make it painfully obvious.

In addition to the economics of the internet, to truly understand the trouble traditional journalism faces today, one must consider the quality of the product.  I would argue this starts with traditional journalism's claim to be objective.  Journalism is not, and has never been, neutral.  The idea of neutral journalism is, at best, delusional, and at worst, deceptive.  Proclaiming neutrality and objective reporting does not make it so.  Rather, it simply engenders public distrust.

As a long-time blog reader, what is refreshing about the medium is the best bloggers, on all sides of any issue, don't pretend to be neutral.  Readers are invited to engage with the writers or free to seek alternative viewpoints.  Traditional journalism, condescending to the end, trembles at the thought of it.

Update:
July 27, 2009
Kyle Smith reviews Say Everything in today's Wall Street Journal (archive).
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M.A. Khan on his Journey Out of Islam

In the article, Shaming the Muslims Out of Islam, M.A. Khan, editor of Islam Watch and author of the recent book Islamic Jihad, discusses his own journey with Bill Warner:

I was one such liberal/moderate Muslim.  When 9/11 occurred, I felt that the attack was rather justified because of the United States' unjust policies toward the Palestinians.  I was lucky, I should say, that I was already involved in some internet groups that were critical of Islam.  But after the 9/11 attacks, as critical analysis of Islam, the Quran and hadiths flourished dramatically, I became a defender of Islam for quite some time.  I continued to resist looking into the basic texts of Islam, the Quran, Sunnah and Muhammad's biographies for 2-3 years.  But I eventually read them, and I was shattered and frustrated with myself.  I was ashamed because the Quran reads like a manual of unconditional war against non-Muslims, Muhammad was one of the most horrible, if not the worst, human being in the history of mankind.  And I had believed that Islam was the most perfect and peaceful religion, a perfect code to human life, for 35+ years of my life.  Emphasis mine.

This reminds me of Hugh Fitzgerald's question:

If one really knew what Islam contained, as not all Muslims born or raised in the West may quite realize, then how could any decent person remain a Muslim?

Personally, I am not at all sure that willful ignorance is susceptible to shame.  What's really frightening is that the true believers are perfectly well aware of the basic tenets of Islam.  Stronger measures than mere shame will be necessary.
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On Moderate Islam

I just finished Bruce Bawer's new book, Surrender.  Let me give you a small taste:

While there are such things as moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.  Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.  Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribe but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.

Almost all of them are moderate or liberal not because they subscribe to a less conservative interpretation of their faith, but because they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.

As a rule, then, a moderate Muslim doesn't see extremist Muslims as getting their religion wrong in quite the same way that, say, a liberal Episcopalian might feel that a conservative Southern Baptist has gotten Christianity wrong; such a Muslim, rather, even though he deeply abhors the actions of his violent coreligionists, may well be unable to shake off the feeling that they're more dedicated to Islam than he is.  The result:  A profound reluctance to criticize.

The fact remains that if there are indeed millions of moderate or even liberal Muslims out there, the great majority of them tend to keep an extraordinarily low profile with regard to their moderation or liberalism; and when push comes to shove (as it has with increasing frequency in recent years), few will speak up against Muslim extremists.  I am reminded of a previous post quoting Sam Harris.

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Elizabeth David on Food and Wine

Rereading Elizabeth David's classic 1959 essay, An Omelette and a Glass of Wine:

Although there are those who maintain that wine and egg dishes don't go together I must say I do regard a glass or two of wine as not, obviously, essential but at least as an enormous enhancement of the enjoyment of a well-cooked omelette.

We are not in any case considering the great occasion menu but the almost primitive and elemental meal evoked by the words:  Let's just have an omelette and a glass of wine.

One of the main points about the enjoyment of food and wine seems to me to lie in having what you want when you want it and in the particular combination you fancy.

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