I am responding to your 2 most recent posts from this week...

I broadly agree that the solution to Islamic terrorism is not a Western-originated top-down reform of Islamic texts and practices. Certainly there are texts in Judaism and Christianity that can be used to justify aggressive violence against non-Christians and Christians deemed heretical. Moreover, the Christian Reformation and Counter-Reformation were not struggles for tolerance and peace, but violent struggles driven by fanatics.

Yet we must also acknowledge that people identifying as Muslims and acting on behalf of Islam are committing atrocities in Western countries against non-Muslims. Taken into a global context, the statistics indicate that wherever Muslims and non-Muslims exist in the same country, there is inter-communal violence. Nor do non-Muslim minorities in Muslim-majority countries ever not face oppression, whether in the 8th Century or 21st Century.

In the United States, since 9/11, Muslim terrorists have killed 105 people and wounded hundreds. Yet Muslim Americans constitute only 1% of the population. In comparison, anti-Muslim attacks have killed 17, of which 10 were non-Muslims mistakenly identified. We hear about Islamophobia, but if non-Muslim and Muslim Americans had the same propensity toward violence toward one another, we would see either much greater anti-Muslim killings or far less killings by Muslims.

We are told that diversity enriches Western countries, yet I fail to see what good Islam gives us that cannot be gained from other non-Muslim immigrants. As for the bad, well, that is what keeps the FBI, MI5, et al, up at night.

The problem is Islamic Supremacism. It does not matter whether it is endorsed in the Quran or by the local Imam, or not. Individuals and groups of individuals are drawn to it either due to their cultural backgrounds or because of its anti-Western revolutionary counter-culture "credentials", as it seems to have supplanted the lure of Fascism and Revolutionary Socialism.

Unlike in Northern Ireland, where the political solution involved the deconstruction of Loyalist Protestant supremacy, and equality rather than independence or union with Ireland, I fail to see what political solution is possible for Islamic Supremacism.

Supposedly Muslims are entitled to freedom of religion, but what about freedom of ideology, which is all religion is? We don't allow "practising Nazis", now do we?