Particle Physics in the Anti-Islam Movement

The asymptotic tendency within the A.I.M. (the Anti-Islam Movement) expresses itself in formulations by which the holistic position is diluted or minimized, often in the slightest ways that may be barely noticeable without the use of a high-powered microscope.

The asymptotic person is incapable of simply condemning Islam and all Muslims. He must inject various words (or even one word will suffice; or at times a mere "-ism" tacked onto the end of Islam) in order to qualify the holistic position that may seem, apparently, too radical and extreme for his ethically sensitive taste.

Thus, our latest exhibit:

I ... believe ... that no believing Muslims should be in the United States, period.

Sounds like a tough and no-nonsense statement, eh? Can anyone spot the sub-atomic particle in that quote by which the holistic position becomes watered down, and by which the supposedly no-nonsense toughness being expressed becomes incoherent?

Yep -- it's the adjective "believing" in the phrase "believing Muslims".

Why does Lawrence Auster (the author of that quote) feel the necessity (which I have elsewhere called the "asymptotic twitch") to inject that word there? If I knew that he was using that phrase synecdochally to refer to all Muslims, I'd be less concerned; but I doubt he is.

Does Auster believe, in any event, that come the day we begin taking rational measures to protect our societies from Muslims, we will be able to tell the difference between a believing Muslim and a non-believing Muslim?

On what basis can we possibly make that distinction for our practical purposes of protecting our societies? On the basis of superficial indicators -- such as Western clothing, perhaps; or seemingly Western habits, like music appreciation, having a wife who does not wear a veil, having your kids playing baseball in Little League in some all-American town (as the Muslim-American software engineer "Mike" Hawash, before he felt the call of Jihad and went off to kill Americans in Afghanistan, had)...?

Or does Auster know about some top secret device the Pentagon is developing, by which we will be able to read minds and know what any given Muslim really "believes"...?

Auster in an email to me once objected to my holistic formulation as being too "totalistic" for his sensitive taste and ethics.

Apparently, I must repeat myself every few months on this: My holistic position is not an ontological position; it is a pragmatic position. I.e., I am not saying "All Muslims are in fact dangerous". What I am saying is that:

"Because we cannot tell the difference between the Muslims who are dangerous from the ones who probably are not dangerous, we must pragmatically treat them all as dangerous, and base our policy accordingly."

Contrary to the anxious wishes of our various asymptotic analysts in the A.I.M., the escalating, metastasizing behavior of Muslims over the following decades will force the issue: Eventually, the West will have no choice but to treat all Muslims with reasonable prejudice as deadly.

Not all dangers warrant a reasonable prejudice that expands the problem into a sweeping totalism. Various factors and features of the problem of Islam, however, when put together, do.

The longer the West waits to come to this rational realization, the costlier, the messier, and the bloodier (on both sides) will be the eventual result. Meanwhile, our asymptotic analysts in the A.I.M. -- by helping in various ways to put the brakes on the holistic meme -- may be serving to enable the Western retardation, which as yet shows few signs of coming up to speed to deal adequately with the problem.