Frank Gaffney's gaffe

If there were a "Twitch Watch", the asymptotic "twitch" in question could be summed up generically as -- "But not all Muslims are bad!" (put in a variety of ways).

Our exhibit today is Frank Gaffney, in a conversation on his Secure Freedom radio podcast with Philip Haney in the aftermath of the San Bernadino attack.

After Haney has been describing in deeper detail the Muslim ambiance & atmospherics that pervades the Muslim world culturally & psychologically as the medium & means for jihad -- at one point he evokes the metaphorical analogy of an ant colony:

The sharia is the arena they operate in.  Some people have heard about ants, how they leave scent trails, and other insects do it too so that they can follow each other around and not get lost.  And that essentially is what sharia is; that is the universe that Muslims live inside, it forms the boundaries of the world that they live in, and their attempt to implement sharia on a global basis from their perspective is an attempt to establish order in this chaotic, violent world that we live in.  That's why they always say that 'Islam is a religion of peace' because for them sharia equals peace.  But the caveat to that statement that 'Islam is a religion of peace' is -- just not right now.

Following this, there is the predictable reflex, Gaffney's gaffe -- he just has to interject his anxious assurance (a little after the 6-minute mark):

Phil, let me just ask you: this 'scent trail' as you put it, this attempt to impose order, you mention that this is the environment in which Muslims live -- I think it's important to say right up front that that's not necessarily so for all Muslims, is it?

Haney, to his credit, doesn't explicitly reassure nor mollify the anxiety behind Gaffney's question; though, on the other hand, he doesn't respond with a robust refutation, either.  If one takes in all of what Haney is saying, and considers it in the broader, deeper context of everything we know (or should know, by now) about Islam -- its history, its texts, its culture, its current behaviors around the world, the religious rhetoric from countless imams, scholars and Muslim activists, and the innumerable data about stealth jihad and the False Moderate -- and if one is applying open-minded reason rather than reflexively emotional givens, one will experience a logical process pointing to the logical conclusion that cannot, without incoherence or unwarranted assumptions, salvage any Muslims from our suspicion.

And that's precisely why Gaffney's anxiety wells up and must intrude, because of the subliminal fear of this logical conclusion, which the other part of Gaffney's mind, still influenced by PC MC, moves in to try to override in the form of an almost involuntary twitch or Pavlovian reflex.

Further Reading:

A Google page of some of my essays on the asymptotic phenomenon in the Counter-Jihad.