A civil war of ideas, not a Civil War

I keep noticing the tendency among some in the Counter-Jihad to demonize the Westerners who persist in whitewashing the problem of Islam -- as though the only Westerner who would do such a thing must be a wicked Leftist (or must be a closet Muslim).

The more important, because more sociopolitically prevalent and influential, aspect of this general Problem of the Problem (the second Problem being Islam; the first Problem being the problem of the Western myopia to the problem of Islam), is not the minority of arguably evil radical Leftists among us in the West, but the much broader demographic of relatively decent and intelligent Westerners who for complex reasons remain stuck in a paradigm that makes them think that it’s the Right Thing To Do to defend Muslims from “too much” criticism.

To demonize the Problem of the Problem would be, I fear, to steer what should be a civil war of ideas toward the perilous slippery slope of a Civil War.

These remarks serve mostly as a reminder to the reader of my previous two-part essay, A Civil War of Ideas.