The Redhunter

Which gets me to Kuhner's second hyperbole: surrender. What the GZ mosque episode powerfully demonstrates is the growing divide between the American people and the progressive ruling class. The latter, I believe, are gradually surrendering. Hard leftists (who have a lot of sway with the current ruling class) do not like the country anyway, so they aren't so much surrendering as exploiting their opportunities. Much of the rest of the ruling class thinks appeasement of Islamists is the way to go -- just as the ruling class's instinct is to appease all our enemies. They don't think of themselves as "surrendering"; they think they are moving us toward a better, smarter policy that will reduce the threat by making our enemies like us better. And even that is sort of "surrendering," they figure it's only surrendering in what they can't help thinking of as George Bush's war, which they were always ambivalent about anyway. They tell themselves -- and us -- that if there were a real threat to the United States, no one would be more fierce in our defense than they would, blah, blah, blah.

Most of the American people are in a much different place. They see Islamists advancing, they are beginning to grasp that Islamists (not just terrorists but the whole Islamist movement) mean to change us in very fundamental ways, and therefore they understand that every such advance is a defeat for freedom. Every advance emboldens a determined enemy to press ahead. Over time, we could be conquered in that our way of life would be drastically altered.

Americans also realize that when our country looks like it doesn't have the stomach to face down bad people and noxious ideologies, we are significantly less safe. Though weary, the people of the country want to see resolve. They think they understand their principles a lot better than the ruling class does, and they are tired of lectures from the Obamas and Bloombergs who, in the name of abstractions that they presume to call "our values," would have us sell out our principles and our security. The people haven't surrendered, and they appreciate that when American credibility is on the line, it's important to win.

Most of all, Americans are tired of the shroud of political correctness the ruling class has placed around Islam. We don't object to anyone's freedom of conscience, and we abide countless places for Muslims to gather and worship even though we know a very high percentage of the Islamic centers and mosques are heavily influenced by Islamists. But we're tired of being told things that aren't true: e.g., that Islam is peaceful, tolerant and non-threatening; that sharia -- which is relentlessly authoritarian, discriminatory, and, in parts, savage -- is something we need to accommodate; and that there is no connection between Islamic doctrine (which is supremacist and belligerent), Islamist terror, and the broader Islamist threat to our civilization. We're tired of being told that people who can't bring themselves to condemn Hamas are "moderates" deserving of being taken seriously and having their endless grievances against America addressed. And we're tired of being told that we shouldn't examine or object to an authoritarian ideology just because it travels under the label of "religion."

This is why I think the Ground Zero controversy is so significant. It sorts out those who get it from those who don't, and forces us to ask: Why are we letting those who don't get it run the show?