Plurality

There were two more Islamic terror attacks in London yesterday. These perpetrated with a car driven into a crowd and with knife attacks on innocent civilians. It's the new normal for the Brits ... and the French ... and the Swedes ... and soon, the rest of the Europe.

Let's step back for a moment and consider all of this.

Assume that you're a citizen of a Western democracy. Over a period of years, a sworn adversary has openly indicated that it wants to destroy your country and your liberties; that in effect, it is at war with you. The war is asymmetric—no troops in the classic sense, no large battles, no air force raids, nothing like that, but a war, nonetheless.

The adversary has time, lots of it. So it slowly infiltrates its combatants into your country, most through legal immigration, and most embedded in emigrant flows of non-combatant, decent people from the adversary's country(s). Time passes and the adversary realizes that some of the non-combatants, now your country's citizens (e.g., the children of earlier immigrants) can be weaponized through proselytizing actions that include direct contact via places of 'worship,' and, of course, ubiquitous websites that demonize your country as an oppressor while at the same time convinced a non-combatant to become radicalized.

The embedded combatants conduct attacks inside your borders, but the elite leaders of your country seem unfazed. Sure, they call for solidarity ("hopes and prayers" for the victims) and sometimes express outrage at the attack; they ratchet up intelligence operations and build up anti-terror squads who scurry around after an attack 'investigating.' But they insist that the terror attacks are crimes, not acts of war. They never, and I mean never, suggest that the non-combatant, decent people from the adversary's country(s) take action and act aggressively to rid their communities of the combatants and would-be combatants. They warn again any effort to put programs in place that might inconvenience or otherwise anger the larger non-combatant community from which the combatants come for fear of being accused of bigotry or racism or whatever phobia seems appropriate.

When opposition voices suggest that your country is at war, the elites scoff, telling you that you're more likely to die of a lightning strike than a terror attack. But lightning hasn't declared war against the West. Lightning doesn't hide in civilian populations and then strike. Lightning gives us warning—it's called thunder. Then again, the combatants have given us warning as well, it's just that the elites and the people who support them won't listen.

The goal of the combatants isn't to defeat you, but rather to create a sense of inconvenience and unease, a sense that your government can't or won't protect you and your fellow citizens. The combatants hope that the feckless leaders of Western democracies will become weary of the attacks and slowly, give in to their demands to reduce the liberties you once held dear. It'll happen very slowly, but it will happen.

The combatants are Islamists—proponents of what some call Political Islam. Their ideology and actions have everything to do with Islam, although a strict, Sharia-driven interpretation adopted by hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide. The Muslim cohort that has adopted the Sharia-driven interpretation of Islam have been part of the Muslim immigration to the West for decades. Their children sometimes Westernize and reject their parents orthodoxy, but other times, the children find solace in a Sharia-based ideology.

A commenter at the Belmont Club, "Epignosis" provides an extremely harsh (the PC crowd would say, 'bigoted') but nonetheless thought-provoking analysis of the current Muslim mass migration into France, throughout Europe, and by extension, into the United States:

Not all of Islam decapitates, and therein lies the danger. While the vanguard [of immigrants] may exhibit tranquility, plurality reveals malignancy. When free nations acquiesce to immigrants in thrall to "submission", they swallow seeds of destruction.

The first aspect of the deception is the assertion that [Islam] is just another religion. Au contraire mon frere. It's a system of tyranny. It's subjugation, It's anathema to liberty.

It can not, with honesty and veracity, swear an oath of allegiance to support and defend, or even abide by our Constitution.

Like the Borg, it does not assimilate into other cultures, it devours them. As soon as plurality is achieved, it begins to make noises about Sharia law, removing pork from restaurants and markets, banning bikinis at beaches, covering the hair of the ladies, defenestration of homosexuals.

It must seek to impose its views on everyone. No freedom of choice.

The issue for a free people is align perception with reality. This is where the arrogance of the human mind becomes the greatest impediment. Inability to be wrong is indicative of absence of humility.

Plurality" is the key to this argument. Once political Islam achieves the numbers required to swing electoral politics at the city, state or national levels, it gains the power to demand anti-Democratic changes, ironically in a democratic setting.

The elites and their supporters would respond to the "Epignosis" analysis with outrage. After all, the religion of peace ... and all that. Besides, social justice warriors have a real problem aligning "perception with reality."

In Europe, all of this contains the makings of a slow-motion conquest. An Islamist ideology slowly replaces the many freedoms that SJWs profess to cherish—free speech, women's rights, pro-choice, gay rights, freedom of religion, among many personal and political liberties—with "submission." But despite increasing evidence to the contrary, SJWs prefer the fantasy that political Islam will moderate. That is fantasy, but preferable to the harsh reality that Islamists wait patiently for the plurality that will some day come.

The Islamic terror attacks will continue for decades until a plurality is reached. After that happens, the attacks will be of a different and much more dangerous sort.

But because the elites refuse to do what must be done, the war continues. Yesterday in London, seven died and dozens were injured. I wonder how many people were killed by lightning that day?

UPDATE:
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News sources are quoting British Prime Minister, Theresa May, as saying, "Enough is enough!" as she responds to the most recent Islamic terror attacks. Okay, how about doing something that backs up that statement. Roger Simon suggests that the nations of the world enter into a global accord. After all, that's what the elites seem to love and if the world community does this, well ... He writes:

Since Trump had the courage to open the discussion [about the need for Islam itself to take strong action against terror committed in its name] in Saudi Arabia, he should attempt to expand the dialogue and create this global accord. Egypt's el-Sisi would be a good partner because he already had the guts to criticize his own religion. All should be invited, even those who would never come (like the mullahs). All must confront the question of why Islam, unique among the world's religions today, has so much violence committed in its name. What is it about Islam that attracts this? What therefore has to be changed, both in behavior and ideology?

The event should be public, with Islam ultimately made to pledge itself to human rights as accepted by the West -- equal rights for women and homosexuals, separation of church (mosque) and state, no discrimination based on race or religion (why no churches allowed in Saudi Arabia?), etc. -- not the absurd Orwellian version of human rights promulgated the UN Human Rights Council.

This demand should be made to all quarters of the Islamic world with economic punishment applied if necessary. The time for diplomatic politesse is long over. Islam must be forced to join modernity. Reactionary multiculturalists among us must be ignored, along with their hypocritical (and nonsensical) belief that all religions are equal. To do otherwise would be to treat Muslim people like children. And that is what the West has been doing for some time -- with atrocious results for all.

For years, I've been a proponent of the blunt approach that is now being suggested. Islam, and only Islam can manage this problem. It needs an internal reformation—one that separates the religion for politics and its implied totalitarian ideology—along with a plan to combat and defeat the Islamists religiously where possible and violently, when necessary. This is Islam's problem, and it's long past the time that Western leaders characterize it that way.

UPDATE (6/5/17):
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Unlike Western leaders who are bound by broad generalities and vaccuous staments dictated more by polictical correctness than the facts on the ground, Conservative writer Joe Gilbertson makes an excellent suggestion for dealing with the Islamist threat to the West:

Is Islam a religion of peace? Any politically correct statement says yes it is, and most Muslims do not engage in violence. And yet, according to polls, the majority of Muslims appear to accept radical Islam, and at least tacitly support it. Very few Islamic voices cry out in sincere condemnation at incidents like those that occurred in London this week, except for the few obligatory and perfunctory protests ...

The word Suhl in Arabic simply means peace or reconiliation.

I propose (in perhaps a White House led effort) the Islamic leaders gather in the U.S. and decide what is true Islam. They should decide, at least for American Islamists, what are the teachings to be followed, and (more importantly!) what teachings must be specifically rejected. They should declare violent jihadism to be counter to God's will, make new rules on human rights. And let's give this new set of rules a name and declare a new branch of Islam - Suhl Islam.

What will this accomplish? First of all, it would allow the leaders of Islam to transmit new values to their followers in a package with a peaceful message. These leaders could put pressure on the leadership of other Islamic groups to adopt the principles off Suhl Islam. It would provide a platform to talk about the rejection of violent teachings. It would identify certain practices and attitudes as evil, reject certain perspectives the education of children, and permit no one to say "true Islam has these secret teachings" to find fodder for suicide bombs.

It would also provide a hook for non-Muslims. President Trump and other world leaders would be able to ask a simple question, do you subscribe to Suhl Islam or not. He would be in fact saying "are you our friend or do you have a secret agenda to conquer us?" The western world would actually be able to identify its friends.

With true buy-in from Islamic leaders, this will certainly spread. Suhl Islamists might spread a peaceful word, but leaders are always ambitious. With support of America and the rest of the free world, they would have the wealth and the political clout to push forcefully into the rest of the Islamic world.

Will this be easy? No, of course not. But the result would be the possibility of a coherent, explicit and transparent branch of Islam with no question of motives and no threat to non-Muslims.

It's a very good idea. That's why none of the elites would ever suggest it or work to make it happen.