Cheney's still a prick, though... It was the last straw when he shot that fucker.

Favorite part: "Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities."

I saw this happening in the college town where I grew up in the 70s. Oil-moneyed Arab teens would land on campus wearing the most fashionable clothes money could buy, driving to classes in tiny, powerful sports coupes. They looked like this picture of Osama's family in 1971: http://tinyurl.com/4ex6u

No matter how they tried to fit in, they couldn't get laid or otherwise acclimate to the western mindset, despite having the best imaginable credential$. My sister used to talk about some of the come-on lines she got from these guys while studying at the library. They were inane.

It was happening across the globe. These young men carried these new resentments and humiliations to the only homey shelter they could find in the foreign land, the mosque. That's where the radicalization happened. Before these crises of late adolescence, they may have been religiously moderate or unobservant. So the best-educated ones, the ones returning home to run the family business and fund their generation's "charities," went home angry.

I've long suspected a good bit of this centered around the inability to get pussy.

And believe me, I'm not exactly the charter member of the Dick Cheney fan club.

Pollyanna Liberalism is just another religion. And like all cults it weaves whatever fairy tales are necessary to gird itself against an ever-threatening reality.

Why does this writer assume that all the people polled who believe conspiracy theories are liberals?

There are plenty of conspiracy theories on the right that involve the federal government orchestrating events in order to give itself more power.

I don't know many of these strawmen liberals who don't believe that terrorists are dangerous. I do know plenty who think that invading Iraq didn't do a damn thing to make the situation better.

Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

There certainly are those on the left who believe this, but about 95% are on the fringe and have no influence whatsoever -- those people also tend to hate Democrats as much as, if not more than, Republicans.

Genuine liberals reject black-or-white, good-and-evil analogies, because they don't tend to see existence as a grand struggle between eternal forces of light and dark.

> Genuine liberals...

OK, but you have to listen next time someone says something like "Genuine conservatives reject Bush's fiscal policies." There *is* a grand struggle between light and dark... but it's more about modernity and primitivism. Failure to acknowledge this is what makes leftism distasteful. There's a wordsmith-y sort of person out there who thinks the problem is understanding and compassion, as if there are fabulous tools for dialogue that haven't been given a chance. Over the weekend, Ratzinger learned that we're running out of things to talk about.

I do have to agree with Mr. T. that the numbers reported by that poll seem rather high. I don't think anyone I know -- well, with the exception of maybe one person -- believes the U.S. government assisted in the destruction of the World Trade Center. Even Le Monde stomped Thierry Meyssan when he pulled that noxious book out of his ass. Nevertheless, I think a vast majority of Westerners underestimate the fragility of the Shangri-la in which they reside, as well as the possibility that they may live to see the beginning of a high-tech dark age without end.

"... liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism."

This liberal thinks that the above are the fuel that turn the "pestilential theology" from a campfire (Fatwah against Rushdie) to a wildfire (Kill the Pope and the rest of us.) But as Harris infers, the cult of death is there from the outset. I think we have to be careful, though, of too easily conflating single issues into one grand generalization .. about liberals, that is. About those who would die for religion and paradise there is no question -- whatever religion they profess. Religion is the root of all evil even though some of the flowers look very pretty in season.

"...Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities..."


Call them educated idiots...usually quite intelligent in the context of their professions, but lacking a capacity or willingness to otherwise think rationally.

> Religion is the root of all evil

It's just not true. Religion and silly obeisance to weird-dressed authority is a problem. But don't kid yourself for a minute: The problem is human nature, and it's not going away just because you snicker at nuns.

"My sister used to talk about some of the come-on lines she got from these guys. They were inane."

Their attempts at pillow talk also leave much to be desired:

"These are marks of stretch, yes?"

Lena, other than the crappy pillow talk, how was he in bed? Let me guess-crappy?

I was also unfortunate enough to experience the come-on techniques and lines, and I just thought they were too funny!