I was taking my family through a Wendy's drive-thru in Ferndale, Michigan when Rob messaged me late Friday afternoon. The message, in its entirety, was, "Are you watching this?"
I told my wife that the last time a friend asked me that question out of the blue, he was talking about the O.J. low-speed Bronco chase. Whatever it was, I knew it was very big and probably not good. So Rob proceeded to explain that a major attack was underway in Paris, that there were already more than 35 dead, 60 injured, and there were still more than 100 people being held hostage in a concert hall.
At this point I obviously wondered about a lot of things, but there was one thing I knew I didn't have to ask: Who is doing this? I didn't have to ask that because it was easy to figure out. It wasn't the Baptists. It wasn't the Texas Republicans. It wasn't oil company executives.
Of course not. It was the same people it always is. People who shout "Allahu Akbar." It was Islamists. No one else does this. Anywhere. Ever. Other people commit violent crimes, but no one else perpetrates highly coordinated attacks that target innocent civilians simply as a way of terrifying everyone in the service of some sort of political/religious agenda.
Some people think I'm in danger of life and limb because I live in (actually near) Detroit. No. The criminals in Detroit will kill you if they think they've got a chance to steal your car, or if you owe them money from a drug deal gone bad, or if they think you might testify against them about something. They're horrible. But even they won't spend weeks planning an assault on hundreds of you just because you're there.
Communists don't do that. Drug gangs don't do that. The mafia doesn't do that.
Only jihadists do that.
And every time we hear that it's happening again, we don't even have to ask who it is. It's always the same people. Always. We simply assume it's them once again, and we're never wrong.
Since we all know this, it understandably begs certain questions:
Is all of Islam evil, or have the otherwise good tenets of Islam simply been corrupted by certain extremists?
Is this merely an inevitable product of all religion, with its inherent tendency to instill certainty about the moral superiority of some people over others, thus leading the most extreme adherents to feel they have the right to wipe others out?
And the answer to both questions is the same: Look at their fruit. Secular leftists desperate to establish moral equivalence will go back centuries and talk about crusades and inquisitions, but in the here and now, where are all the Christian (or if it makes you feel better, Buddhist or Hindu or Druid) terrorists showing up and perpetrating massacres because people oppose their faith?
They. Don't. Exist. And you know it. For all the secular yammering about "all the atrocities committed in the name of religion," it's only Islamicists who are doing these things. Even the Westboro Baptist Church, as obnoxious as they are, doesn't hurt anyone.
Now it's certainly true that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people who would never participate in anything like this. So why don't I make a distinction between Muslims in general and Islamic extremists? Because I'm not talking about people here. I'm talking about a belief system, and it's one that worships a false god, the notion for which came from a psychopath named Mohammed rather than the real one who was revealed to us by Jesus Christ.
The worship of this false god may lead some people to do virtuous things, but it does not lead to ultimate righteousness and redemption before God, because these things come only through Jesus Christ. So don't buy it when someone tells you,
Well, God, Allah, Jesus, whatever you want to call him, we all really worship the same God. No. We don't. A god who does not acknowledge Jesus as part of the godhead is not the God I worship.
(And the fact that you may "not think so" is irrelevant. Facts are facts whether you think so or not.)
Everyone who practices Islam is not a terrorist, but the worship of this false god and his false prophet give rise to the evil you saw in Paris on Friday night. Jihad is the fruit of Islam, whereas the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus is love, peace, goodness, kindness and righteousness.
How do we respond to this? First, we need to stop pretending not to see it. Everyone can see it. We need to stop with the nonsense that our problem is "violent extremism" as if that has nothing to do with Islam. Second, we need to recognize that the nature of the threat is not what we've spent generations thinking it is. This enemy doesn't amass troops at your border and launch an invasion. This enemy moves into your neighborhoods, establishes residency and waits for instructions to attack targets in the middle of your town. You have no way of knowing which Muslims are peaceful and which ones are radicalized because the latter know how to act like the former until they receive their instructions.
So what to do? I am honestly not sure. I wouldn't want to restrict their religious freedom even if the Constitution allowed it, which it doesn't. I wouldn't want to treat innocent Muslims as if they deserve the presumption of guilt. But it would help if we would stop pretending there is nothing distinctively Islamic about the threat of "violent extremism." It is Islamic to the core. Our leaders need to stop chastising the rest of us for saying what I've said here and start telling Muslim leaders that if they don't want to incur the ire of free people they need to start reining in their own worst elements.
But I'm honestly not sure that they can. For all the demands that "moderate" Muslims denounce terrorism, the fact is that many have, and it has no effect whatsoever. The jihadists don't care what the "moderates" say. They consider them apostates anyway.
Here are some things that might help, though:
- Relax gun regulations so more people can conceal and carry. That would give citizens a better shot at taking out some of these lunatics before they can kill hundreds of people.
- Raise the bar on immigration for those from predominantly Muslim countries. Liberals want background checks on guns. How about background checks on people who want to move here and come from a faith system that has a nasty habit of breeding mass murderers?
- Stop pretending we can win this war by providing air support for tribal factions on the ground. Whenever we know where ISIS is, send Americans to kill them.
- Stop pretending it's not our role to wipe out evil wherever we can in the world. Stop saying things like "we can't be the world's policeman," which is a meaningless bromide anyway. We have to be the one force that the world's bad actors fear may come after them anywhere at any time. Obama does not want us to be this. We must be this.
- Stop losing our nerve every time it's been a few months since the latest terror attack. Stop getting sick of the fight and wanting to just go back and watch the Property Brothers again. We're going to have to find a way to enjoy our lives while also accepting that the fight against evil never stops. And for God's sake, no more electing poseurs like Obama who promise to end wars without winning them.
Oh. One more thing.
Stop trying to say "religion" is the problem here. Devotion to Jesus Christ is the only thing that sets you free of the rage and violence that leads to evil. And for those who say "we'll have to agree to disagree," I actually don't have to do that because your opinion doesn't even matter. Only what God says matters, and trying to hold every form of faith responsible for the evil perpetrated by only one is to make God a liar.
"Allahu Akbar" is properly translated as "Allah is greater." No. He is not. Allah is a fraud, and the massacre in Paris is his fruit. If we're ever going to get on top of this, it has to start with our not being afraid to simply and openly acknowledge that.
