Jihad Watch comments sometimes provides a kind of laboratory of chemical reactions between the Counter-Jihad Mainstream (dominated by the outdated, soft approach on the problem of Islam) and the broader Western Mainstream (dominated by PC MCs with an even more outdated, and even softer approach on the problem of Islam).
This was rather markedly demonstrated by a recent comments thread attached to an article about a Muslim demagogue in Canada whose recent public rant delivered to thouisands of Muslims gathered to hear him included such jeremiads as the following:
We must break down the borders that keep out migrants and refugees. We must tear down the prisons and the detention centers.
We will seize the farms and the factories. We must become the enemies, so that in this city everyone can live with food, shelter, dignity.
We must become the enemies that sow terror in their hearts so that laws like C-51 shredded away.
We must celebrate our way of life, what they called barbaric cultural practices on our streets and in our homes until their way of life dissipates under our feet.
Such demagoguery is daringly close to being an incitement of Islamic sedition, yet still a razor's edge this side of being clear enough for the typical PC MC or Leftist. The Jihad Watch comments section in question had such a typical specimen, by the name of "James Baron" who, in the past couple of days, has been a busy beaver fending off the Jihad Watchers left and right of him.
What I found interesting was that this character, James Baron, was trying to oppose the Jihad Watchers and their supposed bigotry by standing his ground on the old "tarring all Muslims with the same brush" argument. Unfortunately, the Counter-Jihad Softies who seem to make up the vast majority of Jihad Watchers have no way to confront this argument head-on -- because, in effect, they seem to agree with their opponent on that point. Where they run afoul of coherence is where their increasingly learned opposition to Islam logically leads to an open-ended condemnation of all Muslims. But, being deathly afraid of "going there", they stand their ground at various places short of that. Hence their incoherence.
And the black humor ensues.
As it has for the last Allahdamned 16 years.
This is not to say that the Counter-Jihad Softies in the civilian battalion never do anything of worth. Two notable attempts to knock some sense into this James Baron character were quite good -- by one "jayell" and by a longtime Jihad Watch regular (and Librarian for the "Rabbit Pack"), one "dumbledoresarmy". Their mounted attacks on James Baron's argument were quite substantive and cogent -- on the level of the Problem of Islam. However, when it comes to addressing the Problem of Muslims (directly related to the Problem of Islam), their commentary not only failed, but begged that question which the Counter-Jihad Mainstream has avoided for 16 years, and continues to avoid to this day.
This painfully scintillating point was glimpsed in one exchange between our PC MC character, James Baron, and one of the Counter-Jihad Softies (and a member of the "Rabbit Pack"), one "PRCS", whom we've met before:
James Baron: There is a long, rich history of Muslims living in peace in Canada. Sorry. I will never, ever hate the way you guys do.
PRCS: Islam is defined by its texts, not by the degree to which individual Muslims comply.
The peaceful Muslims you refer to are cherry picking passages from Qur’an and Sunnah.
Islamic State “fighters” are not.
Notice how PRCS is focusing on (if not shifting to) the problem of Islam, and making it sound like that doesn't mean a problem of Muslims; and even appears to concede the viable existence of harmless Muslims. Meanwhile, James Baron is focusing on all the Muslims who are not exploding, shooting, stabbing, or running people over in trucks; and neither PRCS nor the entire Counter-Jihad Mainstream has anything to say about that, to allay the concern of the broader Mainstream, that a focus too vigilant upon the Problem of Islam has dangerous tendencies to spread out in an open-ended way to target any and all Muslims. Were the Counter-Jihad Softies who dominate the Counter-Jihad Mainstream to think carefully about this, they would realize that they can't forever put off the problem of all Muslims nor pretend it doesn't exist just because they don't face it. Meanwhile, the James Barons of the West (who continue to dominate socially and politically) intuit that something is hinky with the Counter-Jihad when, with one side of its mouth, it keeps massively implying that in order to keep our societies safe, we must suspect any and all Muslims equally, while with the other side of its mouth it keeps assuring the James Barons of the West that it is not painting all Muslims with a broad brush, but only fixating on the problem of Islam itself. The James Barons of the West can see that this implies an inconsistency, if not a contradiction. They say to themselves, semi-consciously: "If the problem of Islam is as bad as these Counter-Jihadists say it is, then it would have to flood outward in an open-ended way to embrace, if not engulf any and all Muslims, since according to them, they do taqiyya and follow a culture of deceit, sedition, supremacy, and invasion."
Were these two mainstreams to address each other head-on, rather than with sideways maneuvers, they would begin to see clarified the actual point of difference between them: The Counter-Jihad Mainstream believes (or rather, should believe) that, in order to save our societies from destruction in the future by Muslims, we must err on the side of suspecting all Muslims (which logically entails policies that reflect this). The broader Mainstream, on the other hand, believes that for moral reasons anxious to avoid collateral damage against countless innocent Muslims, we must err on the side of incurring a certain amount of deaths and destruction at the hands of the Radical Extremist Salafist Islamists (indeed, Sam Harris -- a member of the broader Western Mainstream who is trying to be Counter-Jihad at the same time -- recently effectively articulated this).
As I've said countless times before, until the Counter-Jihad can confront the problem of Muslims head on (which includes the problem that we can't posit a viable demographic of harmless Muslims with a certitude sufficiently reliable to be relevant to our #1 priority, the safety of our societies), and make up its mind on where it stands -- with a serious Counter-Jihad that has digested the full horror of an open-ended Muslim problem, or with the broader Mainstream anxious to protect "non-Islamic Muslims" -- we will be talking on different pages of the problem with the Westerners we need to persuade, if we don't want our civilization to perish in the next century.