In today’s article, I wade in on the controversy which had John J. Miller and Roger Clegg at odds with Mark Krikorian here on our fair Corner at the end of last week. I am less interested in the Linda Chavez/immigration rhetoric angle than the merits of what the Department of Homeland Security and, by extension, the Bush administration are up to — which, with due respect to JJM, I think is a bunch of politically correct hooey. My bottom line:

As policy, DHS gives us rose-tinted category error. It confounds Islam with Muslims and non-violence with moderation. There are about 1.4 billion Muslims in the world and the majority of them would not come close to committing a terrorist act. But their rejection of jihadist methods is not an en masse rejection of jihadist goals. Similarly, the belief that America should become a sharia state, which is not all that uncommon among even American Muslims, is not a moderate one, even if a Muslim who holds it is not willing to blow up buildings to make it so. And even if most Muslims resolve the tension between their faith and modernity by choosing to take scriptures non-literally, or by marginalizing their violent directives as relics of a bygone time and place, that makes those Muslims peaceful people; it does not make Islam a peaceful religion. Where combating Muslim terror is concerned, Islam is a hurdle you need to get over, not a means by which you get over the hurdle.