The sad thing is that these folks - after a lifetime's steady diet of John Wayne and Band of Brothers - just cannot relinquish their adolescent fantasies of leading a great crusade against the latest most implacable evil.

Yes, except that they themselves don't want to do the actual fighting. It's always with somebody else's blood & money. These are the Bill Kristol VFW, Connecticut cowboys & Enron economists.

As awful as Islam is, it seems that American style fundamental Christians are much more obsessed with, and more hostile toward homosexuality and homosexuals than even radical Islam. If Bush and his Christian Right comrads ever succeed in creating a medieval Christian theocracy here, I would leave the US even on a inner tube if I were gay. The Christian terrorists who blew up family planning clinic and murdered doctors and nurses, would be in total control and they seem to be much more efficient terrorists than their Islamofascist brothers.

We've heard a lot of veiled, non-specific warnings voiced by GoldenBoy and his ilk -- concerns that seem focused on their fear of an ideology, rather than any actual practical implications of such ideology likely to occur.

And we're still waiting.

Waiting for some concrete information on how "creeping Islam" is about to take over our political, governmental, financial, academic and religious institutions, and turn us all into Muslims, or subjugated to Muslims.

Waiting for some evidence besides isolated anecdotes, conveniently retold stories from the news, and misappropriated quotes from the Qu'ran.

We're waiting for something more than GoldenBoy's Henny Penny Islamophobic hysteria.

And you know what, those of us here at Salon, and in America for that matter, who operate on the basis of rationality and reason will be waiting a LONG LONG TIME for the hysterics to come up with actual evidence of the Islamic takeover of America. Because there is no evidence to support what is a mental health pathology.

I can understand -- even though I despise -- the cynical reason to demonize Islam. There is power and money in Islam-bashing, if you have the right connections.

I can understand -- even though I also despise -- the Zionist rationale for Islam bashing. There is at least logic applied, if I don't agree with the basic premise.

But I really feel genuinely sorry for those who appear to have no financial or political or even nationalistic motive for their hysteria, because they are the ones who are locked in a world of irrational fear. They truly believe what they are saying.

I have no doubt that GoldenBoy lives in fear that Islam is going to ruin his life, or take over his town. He is just one of the many Islamophobes who are picking up the reins from those terrified folks running around in the 1950s building bomb shelters and turning in their friends and neighbors as Commies.

Just read GoldenBoy's posts, and go back and read his previous posts. Most of them speak of his fear of Islam, and how we are all so blind that we can't see what he sees so clearly.

GoldenBoy is no different than the guy wearing the tinfoil hat, outside on the street, warning us all that the government is trying to control us all with laser beams.

And that is a really sad way to live.

--Aruru

I really don't get it. I mean, they are pouring into our country, breeding nonstop, taking our jobs - for God's sake they have leprosy!

When the Muslims do eventually take over the US, they'll be taking over The United States of Mexico anyway.

Muslim takeover is weeks if not months away, but Mexican takeover is happening right now. And not just Mexicans but even fouler minorities as well!

PRIORITIZE PEOPLE!!!!!!

I'd really like to see you toss off that glib and flippant nonsense to Salman Rushdie or the mother of Theo van Gogh. Or the Danish Cartoonists and their families who have gone into hiding.

Eh, I've said uglier things to people.

The fact is, someone's emotional pain is not enough to write national policy around.

The threat from "Islamist" violence is so shockingly over-rated as to precipitate more deadly effects than the original violence, see Iraq war.

It may make van Gogh's mom feel better that we invaded Iraq or it may not, but I should care what she thinks?

We need to get serious about risks. Letting someone talk you into overestimating them can be as deadly or more so than underestimating them.

Good observations, Glenn.

Personally, I don't want to live in a theocracy--whether it's Islamist, Hindu, Jewish, or Christian. But of those four, it's obvious which one has the greatest probability of occurring in the USA. Our own Christian right would have us all living under their religious laws, which would be just as repressive as the Islamists'.

And NotOrbitBoy has you all pegged: "I suspect that the lack of criticism is due to bush hatred. . . . None of the salon columnists want to say anything that may play into bush’s hands. The truth, and principles, don’t matter to them. It’s just about getting bush." Wow! I think you've just summed up Glenn's army - that and the fact that they like to post here for mutual stroking.

-- Golden Boy

3. salonista’s fear of our government has never been explained in the form of an actual action against them. I believe their fear is due to a long standing abuse of marijuana, . . . but I must admit that I have no evidence of that.

-- NotOrbitBoy

Reading both of your thoughtful posts, reminds me of a timeless lyric from long ago:

Stuart

You know what, Stuart, I LIKE YOU. You're not like the other
people, here, in the trailer park.

Oh, don't go get me wrong. They're fine people, they're
good Americans. But they're content to sit back, maybe
watch a little Mork and Mindy on channel 57, maybe kick
back a cool, Coors 16-ouncer. They're good, fine people,
Stuart. But they don't know ... what the queers are doing
to the soil!

You know that Jonny Wurster kid, the kid that delivers papers
in the neighborhood. He's a foreign kid. Some of the neighbors
say he smokes crack, but I don't believe it.

Anyway, for his tenth birthday, all he wanted was a Burrow Owl.
Kept bugging his old man. "Dad, get me a burrow owl. I'll never
ask for anything else as long as I live." So the guy
breaks down and buys him a burrow owl.

Anyway, 10:30, the other night, I go out in my yard, and there's
the Wurster kid, looking up in the tree. I say, "What are
you looking for?" He says "I'm looking for my burrow owl."
I say, "Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick. Everybody knows
the burrow owl lives. In a hole. In the ground. Why the hell do you
think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?" Now Stuart, do you
think a kid like that is going to know what the queers are
doing to the soil?

I first became aware of this about ten years ago, the summer
my oldest boy, Bill Jr. died. You know that carnival comes into
town every year? Well this year they came through with a ride
called The Mixer. The man said, "Keep your head, and arms, inside
the Mixer at all times." But Bill Jr, he was a DAAAREDEVIL, just
like his old man. He was leaning out saying "Hey everybody,
Look at me! Look at me!" Pow! He was decapitated! They found
his head over by the snow cone concession.

A few days after that, I open up the mail. And there's a pamphlet
in there. From Pueblo, Colorado, and it's addressed to Bill, Jr.
And it's entitled, "Do you know what the queers are doing to our
soil?"

Now, Stuart, if you look at the soil around any large US city,
there's a big undeground homosexual population. Des Moines, Iowa,
for an example. Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart.
You can't build on it; you can't grow anything in it. The government
says it's due to poor farming. But I know what's really going on,
Stuart. I know it's the queers. They're in it with the aliens.
They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to
God.

You know what, Stuart, I like you. You're not like the other
people, here in this trailer park.

from Stuart by The Dead Milkmen

http://www.deadmilkmen.com/song-lyrics/