Convert, pay, or die is the set of choices Islam offers infidels.  Coincidentally, this is also what today's progressives and the Democratic Party offer nonbelievers, climate "deniers," white males, heterosexuals, patriots, blue-collar workers, farmers, miners, people without a college degree, the religiously devout, Republicans, and everybody else choosing not to buy into the party's version of what America is and what the nation owes both its citizens and the world.

Our country has collectively "slipped into madness."  Hatred in the name of diversity and political unity has become a goal in itself – and it is ascendant in modern culture, all compelled by leftist ideology.

No matter how many are killed, maimed, or merely terrified in the name of Allah, for progressives, the problem will always be Islamophobia, or an ignorant populace too uneducated to understand the inherent nuance of the "religion of peace."

Those who suggest enhanced screening for immigrants from Islamic nations or even a limited suspension, as President Trump proposed, are greeted with rioting in the streets, for to look askance at a man who expresses an explicit desire to kill in the name of Allah is tantamount to outright racism. 

Islamic men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years old commit more than 90% of terrorist attacks.  Yet singling out people who fit those criteria for extra scrutiny is profiling and therefore implicit racism deserving of nothing less than outright excommunication from polite society – along with, of course, the total dissolution of one's life, career, and safety. 

This is why, with increasing regularity, those who commit terrorist acts are "known wolves."  They tell us what they believe in and then tell us what they plan to do.  Yet, because they haven't actually killed anyone yet, our law enforcement agencies are frozen, like a deer caught in a tractor-trailer's headlights.

London mayor Sadiq Khan, when asked about the roughly 400 jihadists who trained and fought with ISIS and have returned to England, replied, "I can't follow 400 people."  As if sending them back to ISIS to die for their beliefs is something not even worthy of consideration.

General Patton said, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.  He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his country."  Why is sending the bastards back to ISIS off the table? 

In any case, that's England.  Something like that could never happen here, could it?  It certainly could if we continue down the path we're on.  In fact, it just might very soon be coming to a concert or bridge near you.

I think if you asked most Americans, they would prefer to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment." 

When Obama said that, he was explaining why some bitter people weren't as enlightened as he, but I think most would agree that a little "anti-immigrant sentiment" is better than seeing your daughter blown up. 

Moreover, I don't know about you, but I would much rather be clinging to a gun when an ambassador of the religion of peace comes to stab me, despite how impressed Khan is with the Metropolitan Police response time.

Instead, we have been rendered defenseless by ridiculous rules of engagement that prohibit any pre-emptive action on our part.  Each new terrorist act is a total surprise to our betters, despite a veritable cornucopia of increasingly outspoken known wolves.  In today's politically correct world, if you are a Muslim, despite what you profess to be your intentions, you cannot become a suspect until you actually do what you say you will do. 

Having hamstrung our security services, and as the legions of true believers swell, progressives take pride in their unwillingness to act in the war on terror.  As Presidnt Obama would often scold the less acculturated, "this is not who we are."  Thus, they refuse to lift a finger to protect the citizenry until yet another known wolf commits what would be considered a crime against humanity if it were committed by anyone other than a member of the religion of peace.

Not to worry: being a victim is a trivial thing.  As President Obama often said, the real danger is climate change.  How's that for leadership?    

Oppose this false vision of Islam, and you will experience the left's true wrath.  All of us are guilty until proven innocent, while Islam will forever be innocent until proven guilty.  Even then, somehow it is our fault for not understanding how hard it is for Muslims to live in our unjust societies.  Our women wear makeup and expose their ankles – oh, the horror – and walk around as though they are actually people, and the rest of us go to church, wearing crosses around our necks while we walk our dogs and eat pork, not understanding that daring to believe in something other than Allah is the real crime.

As Andrew C. McCarthy has so presciently been pointing out for some time, Islam is sharia, and sharia is a government system that dictates that infidels or non-believers must submit by converting, pay jizya, or be killed.  There are no ifs, ands, or buts; it is the nature of the beast. 

Our progressive brethren can pretend all they want; true Islam is not compatible with Western values.  Yet my mere mentioning of "Western values" is considered by the left, academia, and the media hate speech, warranting my disappearance from daily life...at the very least. 

Manchester and London Bridge were tests.  At what point will we fight back?  If they kill our little girls, will we fight?  If they kill innocents out for an evening stroll in one of the premier cities of the Western world, will we fight back?

The consensus is that we will not.  That's just the way progressives like it.  To liberal politicians, the vulnerable are merely dots seen from the top of a Ferris wheel – and to paraphrase Harry Lime, the question is, "How many dots can they afford to spare?"  In the perfect society the left seeks to create, it's all of them – or at least all of those who refuse to toe the liberal line.     

In addition, it's not just Islam; proper fealty to all terrorism seems to be the order of the day.  Kill four with a bomb planted in Fraunces Tavern, and spend thirty-five years in prison before the smartest man who ever lived (if you don't believe me, just ask him) commutes your sentence, and you will be afforded the privilege of marching in parades and reveling in the adoration and idolatry of the elite.

On our college campuses, progressive quislings believe that only conversation they deem acceptable should ever be allowed and that politically incorrect opinions are evil and deserving of censure and violence.  It has become acceptable for a college professor to beat conservatives with whom he disagrees with a bicycle lock.  After all, he did it because it was right and just.

We are inundated with safe spaces, while snowflakes play with Play-Doh and tell us what we are allowed to think and say.  In academia today, it has become allowable to tell all the white students, professors, and staff of Evergreen College that they were not allowed on campus on a particular day.  Professor Bret Weinstein disagreed and was branded a racist and besieged by a cadre of student-agitators armed with baseball bats. 

For a laugh, follow this link to see what passes for tough in the progressive world.  They look like refugees from the Island of Misfit Toys. 

All this didn't start with Barack Obama, but it certainly found support with the man, and his administration, who advised his followers to "get in their faces" and also that "if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."  Didn't Obama also redefine bipartisanship as graciously allowing those who disagreed with him the opportunity to do as they are told?

What have we become?  They tell us that this is the new reality and that we need to accept terrorist attacks.  We used to fight, but today we shelter in place, grateful that our elite are surrounded by a phalanx of armed guards and protected by a cordon of security.  After all, how could society ever survive if our leaders weren't protected?

Unlike Obama, I refuse to bow to either Islam or the culture warriors.  I choose to fight.  There are more of us than the left thinks.