A very helpful primer from Seth Stevenson in Slate on the debate about how violent Islam inherently is. My own view (after an admitted crash-course in the subject) is that violence is one deep strain in Islam, deeper than in Christianity or Judaism. This doesn’t mean that peaceful Islam doesn’t exist; it doesn’t mean that violent Christianity hasn’t existed. It does mean that we ignore the violent tendencies in Islam at our peril, and that the linkage between this violent propensity and fundamentalism and anti-Semitism makes for a truly dangerous ideology. Let’s drop the Oprah nonsense about Islam being Episcopalians in turbans. It’s intellectually flabby and deeply condescending.
LETTERS: A great new batch. Two left-wingers return from Damascus; time to drop all references to Clinton; reviews of the Pollit-Sullivan mud-wrestle; etc.
The Dish 