i suppose i should say this again

From September of last year:

. . . What continues to be suspicious, Norm, is
our collective implicit prejudicial conviction,
conservative and liberal alike and however we feel
in the abstract about freedom-of-religion or al-‘Islam (or those
good Muslim folk among some of our best friends), that
the entire congregation of the faithful—the Ummah, Norm,
all 1.5 billion plus Muslim people (or a representative sample) —
are fanatical savages likely to revert to slavering terroristic fury
at such base incitement, and, understandably, act on it.

And, due to that predilection, they should be patronized. . . .

I admit, the end of the argument, then, was weak. I don't have anything better now than an appeal to sound epistemological principles and rational behavior for avoiding manufactured polarizing soi-disant debates, and, to those provocateurs involved, that appeal is futile, leaving only we, individuals potentially subject to such provocateurs' incitements and propaganda, to attempt such behavior governed by such principles ourselves. Or not. Or, lets face it, more or less, now and then, subject to ever-shifting metrics and interpretations, mitigations, exigencies, contingencies, competing values and lapses of commitment.

also this.