Stuck Mojo's speed metal/hip-hop sound and unflinching lyrics have led them to the top of the right-wing pops with their song "Open Season." The song is straight forward enough: try your jihad shit here and you may find yourself on the receiving end of a gun.
That much, though, has been obvious from the beginning. On 9.11 itself, Muslim communities around the world (contrary to popular myth) burst into open celebration, from the Gaza to York.
That is,
old York. New York, which has a rather large Muslim population by American standards, was mostly silent. There were chilling stories of New Jersey Muslims mocking individual bystanders, but for the most part you didn't see the kind of open gloating, horn honking, flag waving and outright celebrations here you saw elsewhere.
The reason for that is that, whatever negative cost America pays for the fact (and let's not kid ourselves: that cost is not inconsiderable), America is an armed society, with a long tradition of self-reliance when it comes to matters of the public peace and self-action when it comes to the state acting too slowly to protect its people from threats (real or perceived).
From the stories we've all heard, or perhaps experienced, about the two brothers who "pay a visit" to an abusive husband or boyfriend of a sister to the woman who opens her purse to reveal her snub-nose pistol to an over aggressive lout on the subway to the Korean shopkeepers of the Los Angeles Riots standing guard over their property with AR-15s and shotguns, we've all seen cases where Americans think it's perfectly okay to "take the law into their own hands." As a general matter, this is not condoned; as a practical matter (i.e. the "hidden law") we all realize that a beating from those brothers is in order and a restraining order is largely useless.
Americans believe in the rule of law, but they also believe that the state does not exactly have a monopoly on bringing "the law" to bear, assuming the right set of circumstances.
Which brings us to Mark Steyn and Northern Ireland.
Steyn's book "America Alone" is not actually a necessary purchase for his core fan base. If you've kept up with his articles over the past 4 years, there is really nothing new in the book that would surprise you. But that is not to say that on occasion Steyn doesn't make a new point that is worth amplifying. What I now call the "Open Season" scenario is one of them.
As an Anglosphere kind of guy, Steyn assumes his readers understand the strange terminology and lexicon of Northern Irish politics, so to be sure his point isn't lost here, it's important that you understand the basic labels.
"Unionists" are those, mostly Protestant, who believe that Northern Ireland should remain a part of the United Kingdom. "Loyalists" are those Unionists willing to use violence and to kill in pursuit of that goal.
"Nationalists" are those, mostly Catholic, who believe that Northern Ireland is illegitimate and should dissolve in favor of a "united" Ireland. "Republicans" are those Nationalists willing to use violence and to kill in pursuit of that goal.
"Ulster" is one of the historic provinces of Ireland, most (but not all) of which is today in present-day Northern Ireland; as such, "Ulster" is a Unionist term for Northern Ireland. Nationalists prefer other terms, like "the North" or the Repubican "Six Counties."
The IRA/Sinn Fein, for example, is Republican. The Social Democratic and Labour Party is Nationalist. The UVF/PUP is Loyalist. The Ulster Unionist Party is Unionist. Etc.)
Now that you're clear on the lingo, cue Steyn:
Islamists are foolish to assume that freelance nukes go one way. If a dirty bomb with unclear fingerprints goes off in London or Delhi, it's not necessary to wait for the government to response. As in Ulster, there'll always be groups who think the state power is too pussy to hit back. So unlisted numbers will be dialed hither and yon, arrangements will be made, and bombs will go off in Islamabad and Riyadh and Cairo. There will be plenty of non-state actors on the non-Islamic side. In the end the victims of the Islamist contagion will include many, many Muslims. But surely we don't need to wait for Iranian nukes, do we? The Bali bombs and Madrid bombs and London bombs have already lit up the sky: they make unavoidable the truth that Islamism is a classic "armed doctrine"; it exists to destroy. One day it will, on an epic scale.
To date (to date, mind you) the contest between the West and Islamism has been between state and non-state actors. This is one reason why the Left has deployed "international human rights" to the battlefield: by its own terms, states are restrained, while non-state actors are not.
But, as Steyn points out here, there is no reason--no reason whatsoever--to assume that this will always be the case, especially if Steyn is right and the manure hits the air moving device with wild abandon.
The question is: what would it take to push Americans and others into taking such action? Would such action enjoy quiet popular support?
Under what circumstances would such action not only be morally defensible, but a duty?
And what would that mean about such people's relationship with the United States Government? They would be criminals and terrorists, no doubt. Yet, like the Loyalists, they would be making claims on behalf of the self-same state that declared them criminal and beyond the pale.
And, more importantly, could such an foreseeable consequence turn entire countries into Northern Ireland writ large?
Could this be our future?
