Jefferson’s ‘Wall’ is Embedded in the First Amendment. Protect It.

In Would Thomas Jefferson Support Today’s Separation of Church and State Doctrine?, Gary M. Galles wrote for FEE:

Early next year [2019], the Supreme Court will hear American Legion vs. American Humanist Assn., involving whether a 40-foot tall cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state. But what is striking about the litigation is that neither those words nor the concept applied today is contained in “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The Supreme Court just redefined the Establishment Clause in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), supposedly based on Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, even though Jefferson rejected the current interpretation imposed on his words.  

So even though a wall of separation of church and state is routinely invoked to justify crowding out religious influences rather than protecting citizens’ rights to religious expression against federal encroachment, there is no such wall in the Constitution.

Oh my god. Did Mr. Galles even read the First Amendment words he quotes? It protects "the free exercise" of religion, but forbids anyone from using the government's power and resources from  the imposition or financing of their private religious beliefs or practices on others. What is that, if not a wall of separation between government and religion? The government represents all of the people--atheists and religionists of every denominations alike--equally and at all times.

Galles wants to take “Congress shall make no law” in a very narrow sense. But allowing government property to be used for religious advocacy is an implicit “establishment” of religion. Prayer in government schools is a good case-in-point. Allowing prayer in government schools may not involve an explicit law by Congress or other legislative body. But it is implicitly “law respecting an establishment of religion” if it is allowed. Galles wants to make an end run around the First Amendment.

The case American Legion vs. American Humanist Assn. involves a memorial on public property, using Christian symbolism and terms, and maintained by public, i.e., taxpayer, money. This is clearly “respecting an establishment of religion” by a governmental entity, if not Congress in particular. No one is suggesting that displays can’t be built and funded on private property by private funds, and displayed to the public. But using public property, which is theoretically owned by everyone, and taxpayer funds effectively forces people to sanction and pay for religious ideas they may not agree with.

And if a Christian display is allowed, shouldn’t Muslim displays also be allowed? Or atheist displays? Or anyone with conscientious beliefs of any kind? We’d all be fighting for our own piece of government property, and access to our neighbors’ wallets. We’d have a free-for-all, effectively politicizing private beliefs. Isn’t this precisely what the First Amendment’s implied “Wall of Separation between Church and State” is intended to protect us against?

We can only guess what Jefferson would think about the Bladensburg cross. But it is hard to believe he would sanction taking money from private citizens to pay for it. And I guess it’s arguable whether Jefferson’s phrase should be considered “authoritative” or “official” by the Courts. But the words of the First Amendment are crystal clear to me. The Founders used religion and conscience interchangeable, intending to protect the freedom of all beliefs, religious or nonreligious, from coercive interference by others, including others in their capacity as government officials. That’s what the Wall of Separation is all about. That’s what the First Amendment is about. For the sake of freedom and peaceful coexistence, that’s one Wall worth protecting.

Related Reading:

On Religion, The First Amendment Works Both Ways

Freedom Of Religion Demands Freedom From Religion

My Commentary on Church-State Separation

America Was Not Founded as a Christian Nation

QUORA: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

QUORA *: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

I posted this answer:

Yes. You can take her own word for it: See Charity in the Ayn Rand Lexicon.

Specific issues like charity are not directly addressed in Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism. It is up to each individual to apply the principles of Objectivism (or any philosophy) to his own life as he understands them. In ethics, Objectivism holds that a person should act in his own rational self-interest in all choices.

As an Objectivist, my own view is this. To be rationally selfish is to think carefully, within the full context of your whole life, about the values likely to contribute to your long-term happiness and flourishing. To be rationally selfish likewise impells you to consciously place your values in a hierarchy of importance to your life, and to act accordingly. Certainly, there can be room for charitable causes in your hierarchy of values. To donate money (or time or effort) to such people and/or causes would therefore be a rationally selfish thing to do. The only “rule” would be that you should never, as a rationally selfish person, sacrifice a higher value for something you value less. You should always respect your hierarchy of values. Charitable giving should not be done as a duty or a sacrifice but as a reflection of your values. So your donations should be made as and when you can afford it, to causes you value, but not at the expense of giving up something you value more highly, such as the welfare of your children or your next mortgage or rent payment.

Related Reading:

QUORA: What do people misunderstand about Ayn Rand's ideas?

Understanding Ayn Rand’s Original Ethics Requires Original Thinking

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

QUORA: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

[Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

[You can also reply to other users’ answers.]

Don’t blame Capitalism for Facebook ‘Scandals’

According to Jacob Silverman, The Facebook scandal isn’t really about social media. It’s about capitalism. He wrote for the Washington Post:

The Times’ reporting offers a necessary window into the surveillance economy and the emerging economic logic of “surveillance capitalism.” We are beginning to see how the trade in data — much of it done behind the scenes — is also an exchange of influence and power. We are becoming aware of companies’ astonishing information appetites, according to which all data is potentially useful. Even carmakers like Ford are beginning to tout consumer data as a major revenue stream on par with the selling of automobiles. In other words, the Times’ reporting doesn’t just implicate Facebook: It’s an indictment of the whole economic system in which we participate today.

I left these comments:

The “economic system in which we participate today” cannot be called capitalism. It is a mixed economy--a politically corrupted economy of government controls (statism) and limited economic freedom (capitalism), in which the government has almost unlimited power to dish out economic favors and punishment on behalf of politically privileged special interests. Often called “crony capitalism,” a more accurate name for today’s system is crony socialism.

Capitalism features a government that protects individual rights, but otherwise respects laissez-faire for those who violate no one’s rights. Information gathering for commercial purposes is not inherently bad. It’s good in that it enables companies to more effectively meet consumers’ desires. Abuses can occur, as in all areas of human endeavor. But abuses of the use of data--data used in ways consumers did not explicitly or implicitly consent to--is the province of law to deal with. If anything gets the blame for the social media privacy scandals, besides the companies themselves, it’s the government for failing to keep the law up with an evolving economy. No, this is not about capitalism. Blaming capitalism for privacy breaches is like blaming freedom of the press for copyright infringements.* This is about modernizing our privacy laws. “Surveillance capitalism” sounds like another scare tactic to frighten us into even more statism.

* [The analogy I used in my original comment was “Christianity for the Catholic Church sex scandals.” But on reflection I thought the freedom of the press analogy worked better.]

Related Reading:

Capitalism .org

The Internet is Not a ‘Surveillance State’

What is Capitalism—Ayn Rand

The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire—Andrew Bernstein

Why Capitalism Needs a Moral Sanction

The Internet is Not a ‘Surveillance State’

In The Internet is a surveillance state, CNN’s Bruce Schneier give us a view of the vast information gathering prowess of internet companies, claiming:

The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period.

Notice the hideous inversion--equating private business with the state--i.e., the government. The basic nature of government is a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. The basic nature of private citizen is voluntarism. A government alone, through its power to make law, can compel obedience to its edicts. A private individual, whether operating independently or as a business--even a giant corporation--cannot.

When someone tries to pin the label “state” on a private company—i.e., surveillance state—he is engaging in intellectual subversion. He wants to create the illusion that a Facebook is a threat in the same way as a Castro or a Kim Jong-un regime. Such an equivocation sets the sage for calls for some form of government regulation or “oversight” over the private companies, in the name of “protecting” us. The result is to handover control of a company (and the information it gathers) that is not a threat to our freedom, in order to hand over more power to control intellectual discourse and content to the government. But a goivernment, not a private company, is the main threat.

Schneier inadvertently points to this threat. Referring to the case of Hector Monsegur, the hacker who was identified and arrested last year by the FBI, Schneier wrote:

Maintaining privacy on the Internet is nearly impossible. If you forget even once to enable your protections, or click on the wrong link, or type the wrong thing, and you've permanently attached your name to whatever anonymous service you're using. Monsegur slipped up once, and the FBI got him. If the director of the CIA can't maintain his privacy on the Internet, we've got no hope.

In today's world, governments and corporations are working together to keep things that way. Governments are happy to use the data corporations collect -- occasionally demanding that they collect more and save it longer -- to spy on us. And corporations are happy to buy data from governments. Together the powerful spy on the powerless, and they're not going to give up their positions of power, despite what the people want.

My emphasis highlights the difference between private business and government. Only government can arrest people. Only government can impose its data-collection edicts on a company.

A private company, or collection of private companies contracting with each other, cannot force you. If it misuses your data in violation of its user agreement or stated company policy, the law can and should be there for you. But the private data collection, or surveillance if you want to use that term, is not a threat unless government manages to get its hands on it inappropriately or without a warrant. There is a vast difference between “surveillance” for private commercial purposes and surveillance for law enforcement purposes. We need to understand the difference. The internet is not a state, because it does not have coercive law-making powers. A government is a state, because it does. I wouldn’t worry about the first. I’d worry about the second, including the collaboration between governments and corporations, which may be coerced “partners”.

We must keep the crucial distinction between government and private business in mind whenever we hear someone call for regulation of the internet or internet companies like Google and Facebook. Schneier states that “Fixing this requires strong government will, but they're just as punch-drunk on data as the corporations. Slap-on-the-wrist fines notwithstanding, no one is agitating for better privacy laws.” True, there are legitimate privacy issues. And the law may play a role in protecting us against the use of our data in a way that violates the users implicit or explicit agreement. That is a contractual issue. Government does have a role in mediating contract disputes or breaches. But we’d better be careful just how far we want the government to go in enforcing its “will.” It can be a protector of our privacy rights, or it can use the privacy issue to extend its control over our lives.

Related Reading:

Facebook/Cambridge Analytica Data Breach Should Not Be a Pretext for Government Controls

NJ Star-Ledger Repudiates the First Amendment, Calls for Censorship

Roger McNamee’s Attack on Intellectual Freedom

The Dollar and the Gun--Harry Binswanger

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. For His Moral Ideals Rather Than His Politics

In commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Peniel E. Joseph, the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University, said in a 2014 article:

King emerges as a talented individual whose rhetorical genius at the March on Washington helped elevate an entire nation through his moral power and sheer force of will.

The March on Washington was when King delivered his famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. Joseph goes on:

Yet missing from many of the annual King celebrations is the portrait of a political revolutionary who, over time, evolved into a radical warrior for peace, justice and the eradication of poverty. During his last three years, King the “Dreamer” turned into one of the most eloquent, powerful and scathing critics of American society. King lent his moral force and power to anti-poverty crusades that questioned the economic system of capitalism and called for an end to the Vietnam War. . . . King’s powerful rage against economic exploitation and war is often overlooked when we think of him as only a race-healer.

The "moral power" of King's famous "Dream" speech in Washington was actually the moral power of the Founding Fathers resurrected. In that speech, King reminded Americans of the ideals laid down in the Declaration of Independence—the philosophic blueprint for the constitution and the new nation—and called on Americans to fully live up to those ideals. “In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check,” King said.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Yet, King's Dream was to be corrupted by an inner contradiction. In his later years, King questioned the legitimacy of capitalism and turned to what he termed "democratic socialism," a hybrid of two evil systems (democracy and socialism) that repudiates the very ideals he espoused in his speech. Therein lies one of the great American paradoxes—the clash between King the moral force and King the political revolutionary.

When the Founders drafted the Declaration of Independence, they laid down the radical principles that would give birth to capitalism. These 55 brilliant words—the opening lines of the second paragraph of the Declaration—sum up the essence of capitalism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .

When King reaffirmed those ideals—that all men are created equal, possessing inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness protected equally and at all times under a government of objective law rather than of men—he was really, though apparently unwittingly, affirming the foundational principles of capitalism.

Capitalism is the system based on individual rights, rights-protecting government and the only kind of equality consistent with justice—equality of individual rights before the law. Because of these principles, Capitalism is the only social system that banishes exploitation and war, because individual rights banishes aggressive or initiatory force from human relationships—particularly aggressive force by government against the people. Under capitalism, exploitation is replaced with voluntary trade to mutual benefit among individuals, a win-win in which individuals trade value-for-value and get better together. Capitalism liberates every individual to think and act on his own judgement and work to lift himself from poverty, and protects those who take up that life-affirming challenge from would-be exploiters who don’t. And under capitalism, war is replaced with peaceful coexistence among nations based on that principle of trade.

So why would King uphold the moral principles of capitalism in his most famous speech while repudiating it in his politics? It's obvious that King didn't understand capitalism or fully grasp the moral implications of the Declaration of Independence that he so eloquently honored.

He undoubtedly viewed the America of the 1960s as capitalist, when in fact what America had was a mixed economy; a mixture of economic freedom and government controls—that is to say, an economy corrupted by heavy political interference, which included the virulently anti-capitalist Jim Crow segrgation laws. America in the 1960s was just emerging from a time when large segments of blacks were legally oppressed and hence unable to enjoy “the riches of freedom and the security of justice” that is capitalism. Blacks, King failed to understand, were not victims of capitalism but of statism.

King’s legacy includes an end to state-sponsored segregation and oppression—a monumental achievement. But his democratic socialist political policies also “succeeded,” strengthening and entrenching the mixed economy in America, which he mistakenly perceived as capitalism—the result being, in turn, to reduce economic opportunities for many poor but ambitious people, including African-Americans.

To his credit, King explicitly opposed full-blown socialism, which he believed leads to communism, a system that he correctly understood "forgets that life is individual." But he wrongly believed that "Capitalism forgets that life is social," leading him to his hybrid democratic socialism. He failed to see that capitalism, by leaving individuals free to pursue their own values in the absence of physical coercion, provides the only proper moral foundation for both individual flourishing and robust benevolent social interaction. That moral foundation, rational egoism, is implicit in the Declaration of Independence, which defends the inalienable rights of every individual to pursue his own happiness.

Thus is the paradox of Martin Luther King.

Commentators like Joseph urge us to elevate his politics to at least the level of his ideals. That, of course, would be an impossible contradiction. But ideas are where the real power lies. Since ideas are the driving force of human events, Martin Luther King, despite his politics, remains one of my heroes. Standing in a line that includes John Locke, the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and Ayn Rand, among others, King reaffirmed America's Founding ideals at a crucial point in American history. That, to me, is his real legacy contribution to America. For that, I am grateful to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY!!

Related Reading:

Martin Luther King: An 'Authentic American Hero'—or Not?

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Fundamental Principle of America

“I Have a Dream”: Martin Luther King Urges Consistency to Founding Principles

On This Constitution Day, Remember the Declaration of Independence

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal—Ayn Rand

Martin Luther King: Right On Racial Justice, Wrong On ‘Economic Justice’


Related Viewing:

Antifa and German Jews Are Not the Same

In the aftermath of the alt-Right demonstrations at Charlottesville, Donald Trump infamously condemned "hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides." He was lambasted for his apparent soft response to the neo-Nazi alt-Right movement. But his equivocation of the white supremacist alt-Right demonstrators with the allegedly “peaceful” Leftist counter-demonstration was not off the mark.

A New Jersey Star-Ledger letter by Arnold Reisman Nutley, published on 9/16/17, concluded:

If the Jews had taken up arms against Adolf Hitler, President Donald Trump would have criticized the violence on both sides.

Nutley equates the Antifa faction with the Jewish victims of the German Nazi state. But Trump’s wishy-washy response to the white racists aside, he was right. At least two reporters witnessed acts of violence perpetrated by the Antifa-inspired Leftist protestors. As Reason reported:

But for those of us already calling out the violent bigots flaunting Nazi imagery, it's not whataboutism to point out that an alleged alternative isn't actually an alternative at all—it's just another version of the same thing. As New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg tweeted from Charlottesville, "The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding 'antifa' beating white nationalists being led out of the park." She later, understandably, changed "hate-filled" to "violent," since actions are clearer and more important than motivations. And CNN's Jake Tapper commented that "At least two journalists in Charlottesville were assaulted by people protesting the Klan/Nazi/alt-right rally."

“Antifa” stands for anti-fascist. As Reason pointed out, we’re not dealing with fascism and victims of fascism. Both the Leftist Antifa and the alt-Right are two sides of the same thuggish coin. Following is my unpublished rebuttal letter to the Star-Ledger:

A recent letter (Criticism goes both ways, 9/16,17) asserted, “If the Jews had taken up arms against Adolf Hitler, President Donald Trump would have criticized the violence on both sides.”

Trump was referring to the so-called “alt-left,” also known as “Antifa.” Antifa, which masquerades as “anti-fascist,” considers violence a legitimate “defense” against peaceful expression of ideas it disagrees with. From the perspective of supporters of free speech, a bedrock value of a free and open liberal society, Antifa—whose tactics are widely condemned, including by political liberals like Nancy Pelosi and the Star-Ledger editorial board—can legitimately be considered a kindred spirit of the neo-Nazi alt-right.

One may criticize Trump’s “whataboutism” reaction to the alt-right violence in Charlottesville, with reasonable justification. But to equate—even implicitly—German Jews with Antifa is a moral abomination. An armed resistance by German Jews against their Nazi oppressors would have been morally justified. Antifa’s violent brand of “free speech” is not.

I’ve put together a group of press articles that I think clarifies what we are dealing with and the alternative:

• Punching Free Speech: Anti-free speech radicals are doing violence to American values-- Peter Roff

• Choose Sides? You Bet. But Antifa and Fascism Are the Same Side: Advocates of liberal society are a side in themselves, and the left- and right-wing thugs battling in the streets are rival siblings from an illiberal family.--J.D. Tuccille

• Unapproved Thought Is Violence--William L. Gensert

Whereas the word “violence” has always meant actions that include actual physical violence, progressives have transmogrified “unapproved thought” from a mere difference of opinion into an integral component of the definition of violence.

Therefore, the violence of unapproved thought can now be met with actual violence because actual violence is not really violence if it is committed against someone with the wrong ideas and the gall to speak those ideas aloud.

• Left-wing thuggery is a gift to Donald Trump--Nj Star-Ledger Editorial Board

• Yes, the Alt-Left Exists and It's Terrifying: For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading.--Keri Smith

• Pelosi condemns ‘violent actions’ of antifa protesters--David Weigel

Related Reading:

A Final Word On Charlottesville: Trump Was Right About the Violence

The Only Antidote to Racist Violence and Conflict is Individualism

Donald Trump on Charlottesville; Robert E. Lee vs. George Washington

Correcting Michael Coburn: Fascism and MarxianSocialism are Not, Fundamentally, Opposites

Liberal Fascism--Jonah Goldberg

Socialists and Fascists Have Always Been Kissing Cousins--Bradley J. Birzer for The American Conservative

‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’ is Not a Bigoted Term

In a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column, Trump's unwelcoming message to Muslim Americans like me, Fakhruddin Ahmed wrote:

Muslims immigrate to America not to change the American way of life but to embrace it. Muslims are attracted to America because of the way it is; they have no intention of changing or harming America. Muslims know that if they had settled here first, modern America would probably look like the Middle East, and would not be a welcoming beacon of freedom and innovation. Few Muslims dream of emigrating to China or Russia!

Muslims are traversing the same path of hope trodden by millions of immigrants before them. If President Donald Trump understood these simple truths, perhaps his misgivings about Muslims would subside.

As more Americans decouple from organized religion and embrace tribal and racial identities, some fear that Muslims will fill the religious void. They need not worry.  Muslim Americans are following the same trend that has delivered other religious groups to the doorsteps of secularism.

Ahmed goes on to back up his contention, which I believe is largely true. I think it’s also largely true that “The overwhelming majority of Muslims are on America's side as it fights these terrorists.” But does that invalidate Trump’s (and others’) “rationale for repeatedly brandishing the phrase ‘radical Islamic terrorism’,” which he say “conflate[s] Islam itself with terrorism and offend[s] the world's 1.6 billion Muslims who do not see a link between the two?”

I left these comments:

I sympathize with the sentiments expressed here. Muslim Americans should not be automatically lumped in with and treated like terrorists.

But there is one glaring problem—Ahmed’s rejection of the term "radical Islamic terrorism.” It is a serious mistake, especially for Muslim-Americans, to evade the actual nature of the terrorist movement, which is precisely motivated by a totalitarian ideology rooted in the Islamic religion. If this barbaric movement is to be wiped off the face of the Earth, all people—Muslim and non-Muslim, religionists and atheists—must properly identify this enemy of civilization.

The Star-Ledger recently ran a guest column by John Farmer Jr., doing just that. Farmer informed of a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, chaired by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton of the original 9/11 Commission, which attempted to answer the question of why the Bush strategy failed. Key quotes from the column:

"For all of its battlefield and intelligence successes," the BPC Report notes, "the United States has demonstrated little ability to degrade support for the ideology underlying jihadist terrorism."

That ideology rejects the idea of a nation state as a western creation foisted upon Islam by colonial powers. It advocates a world as a unified caliphate under a single Islamist banner, and rejects utterly the notion of the separation of church and state, believing that "the Koran is our constitution" and that religious law should inform all aspects of daily life.

Just as only Muslims can be effective in countering the Islamist version of Islam, only America and the west can be effective in countering the Islamist totalitarian rejection of our freedoms and way of life.

Ayn Rand Institute scholar Elan Journo makes the same point:

[T]he jihadists have never made their cause secret. Our enemy is defined, not primarily by their use of terrorist means, but by their ideological ends. They fight to create a society wherein Islamic religious law, or sharia, dominates every last detail of every individual’s life, a cause inspired and funded by patrons such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and above all, Iran. In our book, we call this political-ideological movement Islamic totalitarianism.

These are not Anti-Muslim bigots. These are not “Islamophobes.” These are sober, objective intellectuals. “Radical Islamic terrorism” does not mean all Muslims. It does properly conceptualize the faction of Islam we are fighting. Proper identification is the vital prelude to winning. It’s great to know that “Muslim Americans are following the same trend that has delivered other religious groups to the doorsteps of secularism.” They must be explicit. Just as American Christians rejected their totalitarian Inquisitional past by embracing the separation of church and state, so American Muslims must reject the totalitarian branch of their religion and explicitly embrace separation of mosque and state. That will definitively distinguish peaceful Muslims from the jihadists. Freedom of religion and conscience is a core unifying principle of all Americans.

The War Between Enlightenment and Fundamentalist Political Islam—and the Choice All Muslims Must Make

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Clarion Call for Islamic Reformation—Craig Biddle

The Evil of Whitewashing Islam—Craig Biddle