re: #114 Spare O’Lake

Every religion is plagued by some extremists to some extent, however one must be careful to define the term.
“Religious extremism” as in violence, misogyny, intimidation and imposition of one’s own views and beliefs on others…this is the enemy of liberty regardless of which religion it comes from.
“Street support” as in active support or even passive “wink-wink” support for the extremists is just as vile and subversive as the extremists are. Chickenshit failure to stand up to the extremists and fight them comes a close second.

The unfortunate fact is that conduct and teachings that fit our definition of extremism is, by the standard of “common usage”, is not extreme in the context of Saudi Arabia, much of Pakistan, Afghanistan, official Iran, etc.

That is, their mainstream Islam, as taught in school and the mosque and put into practice in daily life, is violent, misogynist, bent on imposing its own will, intolerant of all other faiths, and willing to kill, retail or wholesale, as needed to achieve its ends.

On the other hand, it’s easy to speak of “chickenshit” failure to stand up to extremists. The people of Iran have shown considerable courage. Courage alone is simply no match for the batons, machine guns, and motorcycles of the Iranian Gestapo, which goes by the name of Basiji.

We do not expect our POW’s to stand firm forever under the kind of treatment these thugs mete out to teenage women who push the edge of the envelope and shout Allah Akhbar from a rooftop.

Official Islam, Iranian style, is not the only version of Islam out there. God bless those girls.