George,:

Yes, Republicans can be very irresponsible, specially the tea bag variety. However there seems to be a certain naivety on our side. Some times we fail to understand fully the risk posed by Islam. We tend to think that if we just could reason with them we would all get along.

Unfortunately, just as we can not reason with people that want to bomb abortion clinics and kill their doctors; Islam and its long standing traditions, want to subjugate us, the infidel world. It's actually a mandate of their religion.

There is almost 1,400 year of history to prove it. Long before the crusades, there was Poitiers. Long before Jamestown was founded, there were Islamic fighters at the gates of Vienna, long before our civil war there were American marines "on the shores of Tripoli" and long before the existence of Israel there was expulsion and genocide of jews in Mecca, while their prophet was still alive and in charge.

Hostility and animosity is embedded in the Islamic religion and traditions. We tend to not be fully aware of that. What's more, the more liberal we are the more they hate us, since some of us are not even worshipping the wrong God --which is bad enough--but are not worshipping anyone in particular. In their view, they not only have the right to kill us, but they have the duty to do so. And yes, there was Cordoba in the middle ages, but it ended very badly for all involved.

Democrats and Republicans need to come together in being fully aware, that we are dealing with a culture that is opposed--for religious reasons--to civil rights, democracy, free markets, capitalism, civil society or fairness of any kind. We are all their enemy, believers and non believers alike, right or left, Americans, Spaniards, English, Israelis, Russians, Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, etc. etc., simply because we have not yet submitted to Islam. We better start to be aware that we are all in the same boat and need to defend ourselves together.

Henry Weinschenk (Electronic mail, December 30, 2009)