But no one is allowed to disagree here ever! Neither as commenters, or with them!

Interesting post.

We have two options, really:
1. (your quote): "So what's left to do? I suppose we could wait for the vast majority of sane, peace-loving Muslims to correct their minority of errant brethren and help them channel their energies into more productive pursuits."
2. Kill them all, making the Middle East and part of Asia into a sea of glass.

I choose Door Number 1, Alex.

I'm not willing to "Kill them all" when the vast majority are innocent of all wrong doing.

1.3 Billion Muslims would have no difficulty eradicating us from the planet, if they decided to pursue that course. Since we're still here I would assume they haven't gotten the secret memo instructing them to start killing us. Our job, if we decide to accept it, is not to give them justification. That doesn't mean we must advocate for an acceptance of their faith differently from how we accept other faiths. It just means we don't need to behave like idiots.

We've done this before. We've had all these debates--the Japanese could never become Capitalists and accept a constitutional republic, the Germans will never lay down their arms, the USSR will never surrender communism, the Indians and the Pakis could never self-rule, and on and on we doubt that cultures not yet adjusted to the idea of good government, should not go along without a fight and a struggle.

"Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side."
--Gandhi

"Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth or permitted to the subject in the ordinary way cannot be forbidden to him for religious uses; and whatsoever is prejudicial to the Commonwealth in their ordinary uses and, therefore, prohibited by the laws, ought not to be permitted to churches in their sacred rites. For instance, it is unlawful in the ordinary course of things or in a private house to murder a child; it should not be permitted any sect then to sacrifice children. It is ordinarily lawful (or temporarily lawful) to kill calves or lambs; they may, therefore, be religiously sacrificed. But if the good of the State required a temporary suspension of killing lambs, as during a siege, sacrifices of them may then be rightfully suspended also. This is the true extent of toleration."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776

It's only been 5 years.

Patience, Grasshopper. Patience.

So often people posit only 2 alternatives, as Grand Stand does above. (1) Do nothing. (2) Kill them all.

There is a third alternative and it is entirely feasible and requires neither murder nor surrender.

It is separation. It is walls, both literal and figurative.

It is saying we cannot coexist with you in the same society. Your fundamental religious beliefs are completely at odds with our beliefs of how we want to live in our societies. Your religion tells you that you can lie, kill, cheat, rape, do whatever you want to us because we do not believe in your prophet. We cannot live in a society with you. We thought we could; we wanted to live out our beliefs that all faiths are equally worthy; but we cannot.

You must leave our societies.

Go back to your own societies, and if you do not like them, then change them from within. We cannot change your societies. We do not want to change them. We do not want to spend the money and lives to try and change them. We have no moral right to change them. You must change them. If you have seen things in our societies that you like, then bring those ideas back to your own societies and incorporate them there.

The reason that this very simple alternative is not publicly suggested by most commentators is because it would require admitting that a bedrock belief of modern liberalism (which is what currently rules the West) is wrong: tolerance does NOT always work. And people are afraid that if they admit that it did not work to let muslims into the West, that others will say that blacks, Mexicans, etc etc etc should not be allowed in either because they also harm our society.

So people stand mute, or at best write clever or angry essays lambasting the muslim behaviors, but never suggesting a solution. Michelle Malkin for example writes eloquently and angrily about the muslim outrages...but has never suggested a solution. Mark Steyn writes witty essays pointing out the hypocrisies of muslims and weakness of Western politicians, but never suggests a solution. The proprietor of this web site ended his essay by asking "So what's left to do?" but made no suggestion.

That's because there is only one workable solution - separation - but things are not bad enough yet for people steeped in liberalism from the cradle up to admit that it is necessary. More murder by muslims will be necessary before they admit that.

And to try to prevent the separation solution from being considered, liberals like Grand Stand posit only two alternatives - surrender or murder. A false choice. As the author points out, we have tried patience. We have tried turning the other cheek. The result has been increased contempt for the weakness of the West by islamofascists. The "patience, grasshopper" approach only works with people whose goal is not to conquer you. Do you think "patience, grasshopper" would have worked for those opposing Genghis Khan or Adolf Hitler? Patience gets you killed when your enemy's goal is to conquer you. Grand Stand and people like him still have not accepted that the goal of these people is to conquer us and make us submit to their religion.

I will go further and suggest concrete steps.

(1) No more immigration or visitor visas for muslims.

(2) Expulsion (with a reasonable timeline so they can get their financial affairs in order) of all non-citizen muslims: visitors, green card holders, etc.

(3) A border fence and active policing of illegal immigrants to find and expel illegals of all kinds.

(4) Official recognition that Islam is not recognized as a religion, but instead as a cult of violence and conquest and thus enjoys no protections that other religions in the West enjoy. It is to be treated no differently than any other cult. We need to make explicit that we only recognize as a legitimate faith those faiths that counsel peace, respect, spiritual awareness, and so forth. We have a right to do that. This is our society and we can decide what we want to accept.

I disagree with a few of the quoted comments:

"It was intentionally hurtful and designed to spit on a culture's sacred icon."
This is completely wrong. It was designed, as everyone who takes 5 minutes to research it knows, to protest and spotlight the fact that people in Denmark are being scared by Islamists.

"Someone may have "a right" to write and publish cartoons that insult a billion people."
No, they DO have that right. ALL people do.

"That doesn't mean they should do it." It does mean they SHOULD do it if people are threatening that right.

"A gentleman would never do a thing like that."
A gentleman most certainly would. A coward would not.

"Only a cad and a scoundrel would." Only a man who cared to exercise his right to freedom of speech, which he correctly felt was threatened, would.

"And I'm not so sure I like living on the same planet as scoundrels." This is fine, so long as you realize that suicide, as opposed to murder and/or the supporting of murderers, is your only option.

"Doesn't validate the threats, but it certainly makes me understand the anger." So what? People get angry all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Free speech exists for that reason, NOT to protect people who never say anything that pisses people off... lol.

"This is something terribly sacred to these people and I don't think it is asking much to get people to respect that." You are completely wrong. I don't have to respect anybody's idea of something being sacred. I don't have to respect the idea of Aryan superhumanity, for example. No matter how many people think that is sacred. Nor do I have to respect anything else which does not resonate in my heart.

What you said, Harkonnendog...We may certainly tolerate other beliefs and systems or whatever--but that is a far cry from having to accept them! Where would one draw the line when respect may begin to grow thin, and who gets to decide?

Is it nice to ridicule the religious beliefs of others?--Well, no, but I do not see how it diminishes the believer's faith. I am Christian (a Catholic convert,at that!) and I claim to be the victim of countless insults of my beliefs and practices...but while I would prefer they not happen, I have not and never will personally offer death and destruction in return! Just as the very unhumorous and incredibly tragic subject of priestly pedophaelia in my Church invites scorn and ridicule, so does much of "modern" Islamic behavior.

When it comes to that "other cheek" thing, we were not meant to be bobble-head dolls. Islam seems to wish to offer the world the Borg solution: assimilate or die. Now, my religion precludes me from joining them, and I simply reject the other option. If voting the Borg off to their own deserted island is a viable option, I am all for it, but that particular "third option" requires their cooperation (and a good deal of Constitutional adjustments in the U.S.) If they stubbornly refuse to accept that outcome, then a sea of glass is immanently more acceptable to me than oceans of blood elsewhere.

I don't see that Option 3 necessarily requires any Constitutional changes. As was pointed out, the protection of freedom of religion is not absolute, and that fact has been upheld over many decisions. We "merely" need to declare Islam itself a terrorist organization. I should not think this would be so very difficult, given their conduct. We then accordingly ban Islam, and its members, from our country. Adherents can forswear their religion, or leave. Conversion "by the sword" in our own land is certainly within both our reach and our rights.

MarkJ is exactly right over all. We've tried persuasion. We've tried patience. We've tried peaceful co-existence. All of which is thrown back in our faces with contempt if not blood. Fine. We now have the option of surrender, violence, or partition. None of the options are good, but Option 3 seems clearly the most humane, the most workable, and the least tried. Perhaps it's time to try it. We should try everything we can before we have to go glass plain on their sorry behinds.

Somehow I do not think that "kicking out" an entire group of people on the basis of their religious beliefs is quite the same thing as denying Brother Will his five wives...(There is a bunch of lawyers who have fashioned themselves to be the "champion" of American civil rights, perhaps you have heard of them?) In the light of its past actions, what makes you think the ACLU would countenance anything resembling the Third Option? (I do not believe the ACLU cares a whit whether there is a single living American, as long as everyone was able to do what they wanted while they were alive-as long as it did not involve a public expression of Christianity.)

What of the cooperation which would be required of the Muslims- they will not go quietly into the night. Rather, they may, but the real question is whether they would be willing to entirely change their focus on the MANDATE that the world belongs to their Allah and must live as Mohammed has said. Once they are disabused of that idea, then we will have peace...but it would be foolish to ever let our guard down and stop monitering the goings-on at Islam Island.

er... most Muslims would rather live in a secular US than in a place run by mullahs, I'm sure.

CERTAINly most Muslims already in the US would. I mean they ran from places run by mullahs. Things are moving along nicely- the dick Muslims are being dicks, the non-dicks are biding their time while Bush and the neo-cons kill and disempower the dicks, and soon enough the non-dick Muslims will shut the dicks up.

I apologize for the ridiculous number of d-words I used in the above.

Interesting world, what with all of the good, bad and talking dicks ...

but really, now...

Unfortunately, all we have is conjecture as to what the reactions of our local Mohammaden will be. We can certainly read and watch what CAIR has to say, and I find them none too convincing that the outcomes will be good for us little ol' Infidels. I cannot speak from experience of what today's Moslem comes here for - after all, Mr. Atta and company seemed downright all-American in their pursuits and interests (just like many straight red-blooded American men enjoying the view at the stripclub!)

I am pretty isolated here in small-town America and rarely have ventured into the big city lately - but I did work with quite a few Middle-Eastern men in the 80's. They were from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Turkey (engineering students at GA Tech) and varied greatly in their attitudes toward women, American culture and the practice of their religion. A couple of them were fairly assimilated, but the one who kept scourging himself (I kid you not) everytime he succumbed to weakness has me keeping a close watch for his face on the FBI lists to this day.They seemed to enjoy being here and were friendly (except for you-know who), partaking of the lifestyle of an American college student--but what they took home from the experience (if indeed, they went home) - did it make them love us, hate us or something in-between? I do not think it was "all an act" as they bided their time here, but that is not unprecedented in our experience.