The extreme position of Islam (Christopher Hitchens)


".....Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.) Finally, it turns out to be impossible to determine whether jihad means more alms-giving or yet more zealous massacre of, say, Shiite Muslims.""""


Unlike most milquetoast liberals (or over-accomodating GOPers), Hitchens at least recognizes the threat posed to Western democracy by Islamic theocracy (and theocracy of all types). Any authentic American (i.e. one who values Madisonian-Jeffersonian principles over dogma, or over the political philosophy of Al Capone), has reason to object to Muslim encroachments on civil liberties (and sharia is already creeping across Europe). Alas, most of the Bukharin-wannabes who frequent the liberal poliburo.coms (KOS, DU, Talking points, Schmendricks.com, etc. etc.) only value democractic principles (Due Process, habeas corpus, yada yada yada) when needed to defend terrorists.