You know, this is a chronic problem. I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They're about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else's life, that's not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it's a cult.
What happened today, according to current reports, is that two men went on a killing spree. Their killing spree, like most killing sprees, will have some thin rationale. Even the worst villains believe themselves to be heroes. But in truth, it was unprovoked slaughter. The fault lies with no one but them and their accomplices. Their crime isn't explained by cartoons or religion. Plenty of people read Charlie Hebdo's cartoons and managed to avoid responding with mass murder. Plenty of people follow all sorts of religions and somehow get through the day without racking up a body count. The answers to what happened today won't be found in Charlie Hebdo's pages. They can only be found in the murderers' sick minds.
. @peterbergencnn's argument: If you ignore 9/11, attacks on Americans abroad and honor killings--Muslim extremism not so bad.
While it's no doubt true that egregious violations of gay people's human rights have been -- and in some cases, continue to be -- carried out in the name of Christianity, there is no comparison here. Check out this chart, and see if you can spot the pattern. And then try to extract yourself from the rabbit hole I've led you down. We should all be able to agree that holding the horrendous actions of killers against larger groups with whom they're associated is almost always unjustifiable and wrong. We can lock arms and agree that a majority of Muslims across the world do not condone what happened in Paris yesterday, or in Iraq and Syria over the last year, or in London in 2005, or in Madrid in 2004, or in Bali in 2002, or in New York City and Washington in 2001, etc. But those important caveats should not give way to the mindless repetition of a flawed mantra in order to shield a politically correct narrative against unpleasant realities. This form of denial is frightening and self-defeating. Left unchecked, it's societal suicide.