President Obama keeps saying that we are not at war with Islam.  I will concede that we are not at war with Muslims in general -- but we are certainly at war with Islamists, who pick and choose selectively from the Quran to promote their hideous agenda.  While the Islamists use the parts of their holy book that suits them, we, defenders of liberty, adhere to every word of the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution in the battle against Islamic tyranny

Those Muslims who are citizens are entitled to live here and enjoy the beneficence of this great country to the fullest of a citizen's rights.  At the same time, we have every right and even a responsibility to be concerned about the danger of Islamism to our way of life -- a way of free people to live peacefully and respectfully with one another without in any way posing threats to the fundamental ideals that birthed this nation and have sustained it to the present.

Muslims are not our enemies.  Islamism is.  Below are some specific suggestions on how to defeat Islamism at home.

Don't Kill the Patient; Eradicate the Disease

A Muslim is the patient.  Islamism is the disease.  The overwhelming majority of Muslims contract the virus of Islamism at an early age, when they are most vulnerable.  Once this virus takes hold, it completely destroys the individual's cognitive immune system, or else it makes it most difficult for the person to see the pathology.  Islamism is jihadist and intolerant of the "other," and it is rooted in the most base beliefs and practices.

Defeat Creeping Sharia Law

I cannot overstate the dangers of sharia law and its insidious creeping nature.  Sharia law is a monumental threat to our laws, the grantors of our liberty.  No effort should be spared in denying the stone-age misogynistic body of Islamic laws from invading our legal system.

In infidel lands, the slow-acting yet deadly cancer of invasive sharia is wedged into laws by powerful moneyed Islamic organizations coaxing and greasing the politicians to issue ordinances or legislate seemingly harmless provisions.  Islamic organizations and clerics who have a vested interest begin their sharia campaign by asking for an ordinance or legislation for seemingly inconsequential things, such as requiring stores to clearly designate and completely separate halal food and meat from the non-halal.  What is important here is that ordinances and laws like this are the beginning of getting the government into the business of enforcing sharia law.  Before long, there will be no way out.

Islamism is a hydra, and every head of this deadly creature, no matter how small, must be severed and the wound cauterized.  If not, before long, we end up in the same irreversible and horrible mess that countries such as Great Britain find themselves in, with full sharia law and sharia courts.

Sharia law is also creeping in through the courts.  Sadly, some judges are just as corruptible as politicians and are amenable to powerful Islamic influences for handling cases before them.  The center for security policy evaluated "50 appellate court cases from 23 states that involve conflicts between sharia (Islamic law) and American state law. The analysis finds that sharia has been applied or formally recognized in state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy."

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  In contrast to many countries, this nation of all nations, the United States of America, has always adhered to the separation of religion and the state.  Our national, state, and local governments, as well as the judiciary, should neither support nor persecute any religion.  Judges in particular should completely refrain from legislating sharia from the bench.

Don't Do as Islamists Do

Don't vilify, persecute, or even harass Muslims.  They are entitled to be treated fairly, although they sometimes don't feel that they should also treat non-Muslims fairly.  Believers in liberty want the God-given gift for all of mankind and not just for themselves.  We want Muslims to be free also, without threatening our liberty.  First and foremost, we must do what we can to empower them to exercise their gift of reason and free will and cast off the shackles of their radical beliefs.  We must remain true to our Pledge of Allegiance: "liberty and justice for all."

Don't Lie about Islam

Lying and dissimulation is taqiyya, ordained and practiced by Muhammad, for use by Muslims only when dealing with infidels.  Muslims have the patent and copyright on this shameful practice, and the non-Muslims have no need for it.  You use lies when you aim to deceive, when you are ashamed of something, or when you wish to distort things.  Free people have no need for the abhorrent practice.  The contents of the Quran that feed Islamism are all the support you need.

Be Firm but Kind

Do honor to your conviction, a conviction worth defending with unshakeable resolve, yet with kindness.  Avoid belligerence when challenging Muslims.  Sincere kindness works much better than hostile confrontation.  Attacking a person's belief can often backfire and serve further to confirm him in the ideology.  Challenging individual Muslims with an open mind and heart is much more likely to succeed in making them rethink the pathological belief and hopefully discard it.

Don't Believe the Sanitized Versions of Islam

Paid mercenaries, Islamic apologists, and many others trip over each other, overwhelming us with distorted and highly sanitized versions of Islam.  The distortions and lies are frequently so blatant that we take them as truth, particularly when our own presidents have thrown them at us.  Islam is a religion of peace; they keep telling us.  Yet it is not, and it has never been.  Study the facts.  Read the Quran, study the Sunna and Hadith from Islam's own historical documents, and find out for yourself why Islam is not what its apologists claim.  You need nothing more.  Their very own sacred book and other records are your best proof to reason with Muslims and help them leave the fold.

Drain Islam's Source of Funds

Money is the lifeblood of every enterprise.  Islamist organizations get much of their financial life force from oil sold to the kafir world by oil-bloated Islamic countries.  We, the kafir, are literally financing our own destruction by heedlessly continuing our addiction to foreign oil.  We are forced to buy oil from our very enemies, because oil is oil.  If we boycott the oil from the Persian Gulf area, then we have to buy it elsewhere unless we buckle down and do what we must to become self-sufficient in energy.  We do indeed have the resources to become energy self-sufficient, but we don't seem to have the will.

Challenge Professors, Preachers, and Individual Muslims

Don't get cowed by professors.  Challenge them to document their claims, and provide them with your own evidence that clearly falsifies this propaganda.  Visit mosques and Islamic centers and do the same without being discourteous or belligerent.  Do the same with Muslims you know or meet.  Many of these people are very hard nuts to crack.  Yet we must crack them if we're to slowly wipe out Islamism from our homeland.

Define and Defend Freedom of Religion

Freedom of religion is a two-edged sword.  On the one hand, it grants the diverse people of this nation the right to worship according to their beliefs.  On the other, it becomes a license for Islamist clerics to preach hate about the non-Muslims and indoctrinate their young in the intolerant, violent, and jihadist doctrine of Islamism.  Thousands of mosques, Islamic centers, and university academic departments dot the land with thousands of preachers, politicians, and paid professors pushing Islam.  We must make it a criminal offense to preach hate under the rubric of religion or to misrepresent and lie about religion.

Disturbingly, powerful Muslim organizations are working hard to enact legislation that would make any honest criticism of Islam a criminal offense.  They aim to muzzle us from speaking the truth about Islam.  Speaking this truth, they claim, is a hate crime and should be punished.

Islamic clerics have a huge vested interest in Islam.  They make a very good living with lifetime job security.  They do all they can to keep the charade going.  And so do all the others who sing the praises of Islam.  We must make sure that they do not practice dispensing misinformation and disinformation, that they do not fan the fire of hatred for non-Muslims, while succeeding in preventing us from exposing Islam's true nature.

Islam is a religion of peace? That's not the way it's operating in Muslim lands, with the daily free-for-all mayhem and massacres.  If Muslims want to have a place in the home of the free, they must -- they absolutely must -- live by the rules of this nation that welcomed them and abandon the attempts at subverting our cherished way of life and replacing it with theirs.

Retaining What Is Human

We believe that the Creator has endowed human beings, both men and women equally, with the gift of intellect.  We believe that women are every bit coequals of men in every sphere of life, and we reject Islam's specific dogma that a woman is worth one half of a man.  We also believe that all humans are endowed with a measure of freedom to think, choose, and act.  As individuals, we are responsible for the manner in which we use these resources -- for the good or for the bad.

Islamic doctrine is diametrically in conflict with the above belief.  According to Islam, the individual is a mere choice-less vessel in the hand of the all-everything, Allah.  Islam strips the individual of self-reliance and replaces it with unconditional surrender to Allah.  Not a leaf falls without Allah so decreeing, asserts the Quran unequivocally.  "Insha'Allah" (Allah decreeing, Allah ordaining, or Allah willing) precedes every commitment of the faithful Muslim.  It is all up to Allah, as Muslims are led to believe.  No wonder the Islamic world is in such a chronic state of backwardness.  Muslims sit around waiting for Allah to decree and even do everything.  It is a true belief of nihilism.

Resist Multiculturalism

For a variety of reasons, during the past decades, Western societies opened their doors to a flood of Muslims from Islamic lands.  In so doing, they aimed to make the newcomers feel at home, retain their way of life, and live in harmony with the indigenous population.  But good-heartedness not only failed, but it boomeranged and severely hurt the welcoming hosts.

It is wonderful to be charitable.  It is great to be good-hearted.  But being charitable to and accommodating evil can empower evil to tear out your good heart.

Islamism and jihadism are on the rampage, often to the detriment of Muslims themselves.  We don't want to repeat European mistakes.  We want no multicultural fantasy to create a nightmare reality.  Muslims who live here must become part and parcel of America, just like all the other diverse people who have come to this wonderful land.  Muslims must abide by and honor the same values and laws that have made this nation a beneficent refuge for all people.

Challenge All Politicians

The naked truth is that politicians are paid agents. They do and say what gets them elected and keeps them in office.  As a voter and fund contributor, you are important.  Let your representatives know how you feel and how you are going to treat them if they sell their services and become Islam enablers.  Hold them accountable at all levels of government, from the local city council to the occupier of the White House.

Conclusion

In short, we have a great country, troubled by numerous challenges.  We can ill afford to become complacent or disheartened.  If we band together in a common cause with devotion to our nation's principles and values, we can meet and defeat any threat of any type or magnitude.  Past generations of Americans have always done so successfully, and this generation of Americans must do no less.

Update -- Amil Imani responds to reader comments:

"Islamism," is a militant version of Islam. Anyone who believes in the militant version of Islam is an Islamist. Any Muslim, who enlists himself in implementation of the militant Islam, is a jihadist. For all intents and purposes, there are no sharp demarcation lines between Muslims, Islamists, and Jihadists. Any differences among the three are of degree and not of kind.

Using a rough analogy. Rape is a noun that defines an act. Believing in rape makes the person an adherent of the act. Engaging in rape makes the person a rapist.

For all kinds of reasons it is best to target Islamism, not Islam and not generalize Muslims. When you address Islamism and jihadism, their source is also addressed. It is a more prudent and a less bigoted way and more effective way. Islamism is a deadly disease. Muslims are the diseased. You don't want to kill the diseased. They are the patients. You want to help the patients to rid themselves of the affliction. You want to eradicate the horrifically communicable disease. Muslims are already here, what do you suggest we should do, KILL them all? Concentration camps? Mass deportation? Good luck with that. What can you do then? It takes every free human to do his or her share in defeating Jihadism.

1- You don't have to take up arms and go around killing the Jihadists. That's the Jihadists' way of dealing with us and anyone they don't approve of. Decent humans value life, even the life of a Jihadist. By contrast, the Jihadists have no compunctions at amputating limbs, stoning, beheading and hanging people even en mass.

2- Fight to end the deadly practice of political correctness. Truth, only naked truth, can set us free. And freedom is our greatest gift of life.

3- Demand that politicians, Islamic apologists, and paid-for media do not abuse freedom by lying about Islam. When these people portray Islam as a religion of peace, they are lying through their teeth. Just take a quick look at Islam's history as well as what is happening today in the Islamic lands. Islam is not a religion of peace and it has never been. Islam is violent, oppressive, racist, and irrational at its very core. It is treachery for people to present it as otherwise, either out of ignorance or because of their own personal reasons.

4- Challenge your leftist professors who may be retained by Islamic front organizations to trumpet Islam's virtues. Demand transparency from hired lobbyists and the liberal mainstream media. Sadly, a percentage of people in Western Democracies are born alienated. These people seem to a have congenital hatred of their own societies; they ally themselves with any and all people and forces that aim to destroy our cherished way of life, and they live by the motto: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They eagerly join forces with the Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavezes of the world.

5- Demand that Islamic literature, including the hate and violence manual called the Qur'an, be purged of all violent and hate spewed toward non-Muslims.

6- Do not allow any special privileges whatsoever granted to Muslims. Demand that all Muslims have their first and foremost loyalty to the United States and its Constitution and not to the Islamic Ummah, the Qur'an, and the shariah law.

7- Demand that none of the barbaric provisions of Islamic sharia be practiced. Just because a woman is born into a Muslim family, that shouldn't force her to lead a subservient life to a man, for example. All family matters and disputes, without exceptions, must be adjudicated according to the civil laws of the country.

8- Require that the large number of recent arrival Muslims be carefully vetted for their terrorism and Jihadists backgrounds and beliefs. Many recent arrivals from places such as Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan come as refugees and bring with them their pathological anti-American system of belief.

9- Demand that Muslims, without the least reservation, adhere to the provisions of the human rights. Muslims, by belief and practice, are the most blatant violators of human rights. We hardly need to detail here Muslims' systemic cruel treatment of the unbelievers, women of all persuasions, and any and all minorities across the board.

10- Support financially and in every other legal way those individuals and organizations that are fighting the Jihadists' relentless encroachment. Many European countries are already on the verge of capitulation to the Islamists.

11- This is a battle for survival that every one of us can help wage. Let's get on with it before, if not you, then your children and grandchildren end up under the barbaric rule of the Jihadists