The author wrote: "Democracy merely stipulates that the will of the people should be sovereign; and provided that the majority is intolerant enough, there is nothing inconsistent between democratic rule and illiberal ideologies like Islamism."

The above is rubbish. Democracy is much more than the rule of the majority. In Nazi Germany it is believed that most Germans supported Hitler until it became evident that Germany was losing the war. However, Nazi Germany was never a democracy although most Germans probably supported Hitler and the Nazis.

Democracy encompasses the rule of law not arbitrary decisions by a dictator or totalitarian party. The rule of law applies to all citizens not just those of a favoured race or ethnicity. Democracy calls for individual rights for all not just those accepted by the state. All democracies do not give equal rights to all, but not all countries that call themselves democracies are full democracies. The US has moved toward democracy by eliminating racism until the country has a dark-skinned president. Herscovitch's definition of democracy would allow the most oppressive tyranny to be considered a democracy as long as most people supported it. It is amazing that a person so ignorant as to the nature of democracy as Herscovitch can be a research fellow at any respected institution.

I have come to the conclusion that we must put up a Berlin Wall between
the Moslem states and ourselves.
Trade food for oil until the Gulf production decline no longer matters.
Otherwise have a complete trade and diplomatic disconnect.
If any of their armies re enter Europe, Africa or Asia then make sure that they
understand they will be destroyed by a united rest of the world.

With the new economic problems the world is about to face we cannot afford
to be distracted by the carryings on in the Middle East.
In an era of zero growth and the decline of global trade we will be too engaged in
our own restructuring to worry about the disaster that will ocurr in the Middle East.

Islam-ISM and Christian-ISM are both at root power-and-control-seeking ideologies, both of which have always sought to control all of humankind. They have been engaged in a centuries long struggle for world domination.
A centuries long struggle which has now reached its inevitable deadly phase. Which if allowed to continue on its present (centuries long) momentum will destroy all of Earthkind via a global holocaust.

Prior to the last decades of the 20th century global conflicts could more or less be kept under some kind of control.
That is of course no longer possible when weapons of mass destruction including chemical, biological and potentially nuclear, are easily available to any group that has a real or imagined grievance. Groups who wish to dramatize their murderously reasonable intentions on to the world stage -"advertising" the fact via the internet and "social" media.
Giving a new grotesque manifestation of Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of TV fame.

Furthermore we Westerners have in fact been "educating" the hearts and minds of people in the Islamic world for at least the last 100 years. The relevant historical details are freely available to anyone.

One of the latest and most effective means of such "education" was the shock-and-awe destruction of the culture and infrastructure of Iraq.
How much "collateral damage" was created by that misadventure?
Farmers were even forbidden by "law" to save seeds for next years crops.

Even more effective has been the use of drones to terminate who knows how many innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We are of course "civilized". We create unseen "collateral damage" from 30,000 feet or launch our drones and cruise missiles from secure bunkers on the other side of the world.
A bit like playing video games!
We even got to watch the destruction of Irag and Baghdad on TV in full colour

From another perspective were Christian Europeans really all that civilized when WWII finished?
Of course not.
The blood-soaked facts are described in great detail by Keith Lowe in his book Europe In The Aftermath Of World War II

Daffy, your comment above is one of the most sensible I have read on OLO for quite some time.

Your statement about the two 'Fallacious-Isms' (Christianity and Islam who both want to gain control of the world) is accurate. Such a struggle for domination can only have one outcome, that is human extinction.

As nuclear war comes closer and the two ridiculous, fictitious ideologies collide, the outcome is clear. It will be a Pyrrhic victory of massive proportions.

Why can't more people see the writing on the wall?