In American Betrayal, Diana West exposes the role that name-calling plays in inhibiting, even shutting down, critical thinking about vital subjects. Her words are worth quoting at length, given the relevance of our conditioned reflex both to criticism of Islam and how we’ve been conditioned to disarm before the Communist threat (present as well as past).
She had been reading Bat Ye’or’s investigations into the decades-long self-subjugation of the West to Islam, including The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: from Jihad to Dhimmitude, and Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide–all of which debunk the proposition “Islam is peace.” No, West learned . . .