Something snapped yesterday...

The pièce de résistance, the straw that finally broke this beleaguered camel's back, the occasion for the snap I felt deep inside my psyche, was the horrific Mumbai-style attack on Paris yesterday.

What snapped in me did not mean I suddenly changed my view of the problem of Islam (as in, it suddenly became in my mind more pronounced or resolved -- as if that's possible); nor that I suddenly changed my view of the PC MC mainstream (as in, I suddenly got more fed up with their tragi-comic dementia & denial than I've already been for years).  Thus, it wasn't the Problem (of Islam) that did it; nor was it the Problem of the Problem (the Western mainstream myopia to the Problem).  It was the Problem of the Problem of the Problem that finally triggered my soul to leave my body.  I think it happened at about 10:39 p.m. last night.

This tertiary Problem is, generally speaking, the problem of the Counter-Jihad performing egregiously sub-par and being blithely oblivious to its mediocrity.  If my reader might ask me what I mean by this, I'd have to wave a weary hand in the direction of my hundreds of essays and comments over the years in which I have exhaustively analyzed this every which way but loose (one small example were the over 2,000 comments I logged during the months Jihad Watch comments were frameworked by IntenseDebate; and more broadly the reader can consult my 10-part series, Taking the Temperature of the Counter-Jihad).

And, to add insult to injury, when the few of us who dare to point out constructive criticism of these flaws in the Counter-Jihad, in the interest of quality control & improvement, more often than not we meet mocking or even hostile resistance, or perhaps worse, indifference.  If this isn't bad enough, this passive-aggressive hostility & defensive static energy the critic encounters seems to be protecting a soft underbelly guarded by most in the Counter-Jihad, strangely resistant to a robustly anti-Islam stance.

For the purposes of this essay (rant), I define (but do not limit) the "Counter-Jihad" in terms of the Jihad Watch comments fields and in terms of the anti-Islam chat rooms (such as they are) on Paltalk.

All of what I've described thus far may not have been enough to make me snap, had it not been for my belated realization that the community I had been seeking from these two venues really hasn't been there.  My mistake was to keep thinking the potential of a community in my mind was enough to make up for its pathetic dearth in actuality.  And after this latest Mohammedan military assault on a major Western capital, I realized I need a community more than ever: a place like Cheers where everybody knows your name and you can come in after a hard day at work or in "real life" and find some commiseration, some intellectual stimulation, some comraderie, and yes -- some disagreements (since no two people on God's green earth never disagree about something).

More than the sum of all those parts, however, I need a community that cultivates a Zero Tolerance of All Muslims.  This means that the problem of Islam is the problem of all Muslims for a multitude of reasons everyone should know by now -- and it means no soft spots for Kurds, no optimism about Egyptian "reformers", no hope invested in Iranian "protesters", no hope for Muslim reform in general, and nothing but jaded cynicism for unctuously pseudo-sympathetic "moderate" Muslims like Irshad Manji, Zudhi Jasser, or Maajid Nawaz...  Etc., etc., ad Islamonauseam.

Yesterday afternoon, after I saw brief mentions of the Paris attack here and there, my immediate impulse was to dial up Jihad Watch.  Since I first discovered that site in its fledgling early days back in the Winter of Aught Three, it offered a singular source & perspective in a world increasingly burying its head in the sand on the banks of De Nile. As was my wont & habit, I plunged into comments fields of the latest two articles about the event.  It wasn't anything new for me to notice and become quickly annoyed at various signs of softness or inept thinking among the commenters.  What seemed different this time was that my disgust finally reached its threshold.  I couldn't take any more of their obtuse pretense at being robustly no-nonsense, politically incorrect counter-jihad text warriors.   The same occurred shortly thereafter when I dove into Paltalk chat in my vain (and probably naive) attempt to find some intelligent consolation in my hour of need.

Something snapped. 

For years and years, I realized I had been beating my head against the wall in those two places, hoping to kindle some kind of real community; but as they say (to mix metaphors), you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.

So, to Jihad Watch comments and Paltalk, it's not au revoir -- it's adieu.

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Postscript:

You -- whoever "you" may be -- know where to find me if you need me.