The following is a slightly revised version of a reply Jillian Becker made to a British (and fatuously anti-American) commenter on the post Islam and “Islamism”, November 14, 2011.

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From time to time it’s necessary for us to state what we’re all about.

We are atheists. That is self-explanatory. We are conservatives in that our principles are those at the core of American conservatism: limited government, low taxes, strong defense, a free market economy, individual liberty.

Liberty is our highest value. We oppose collectivism, which is serfdom.

Collectivist ideologies are  of two kinds: egalitarian and inegalitarian. Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Stalinism, Maoism are examples of the egalitarian. Nazism, Islam, the Catholicism of the Middle Ages are examples of the inegalitarian.

Our chosen task is the critical examination of ideas, mainly political and religious. Our pages are are full of criticism of Catholicism, Calvinism, Judaism, Islam, and many more such systems of belief. They are sets of ideas, and as such need to be examined and criticized. Their histories and the crimes committed in their name need to be repeatedly exposed.

We fix our assessing eye on Islam more than on any other religion because it is waging war on the West. Our view of Islam is not prejudice, it is judgment. We have taken the trouble to inform ourselves. To be against subjugators, oppressors and mass murderers is not “bigotry”.  We quote Muslims who are regarded as authorities, sometimes showing them in videos expressing themselves directly. Islam’s defenders have the hospitality of our comment pages to explain why they like it.

We have never advocated, and never would, the harming of any person except criminals or those who declare an intention to commit a crime. In such cases we expect the law – not a mob – to deal with them. Or if they are terrorists held, say, at Guantanamo Bay, we want them to be brought before a military tribunal and if found guilty, executed.

Islam should become as abominated as Nazism and Maoism generally are at least in the West. It deserves nothing better. That it calls itself a religion in no way exonerates or excuses it. In any case, we respect no religion, no belief in the supernatural, no orthodoxy, no dogma.

To discredit Islam, constant public criticism of it is absolutely necessary. That is why no laws or resolutions protecting it from criticism must be passed by nation states or by the UN, which is currently trying to do just that (with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s help).

Islam declared war on the non-Muslim world 1400 years ago. That war has become very hot of late. Since 9/11 there have been some 18,000 deadly terror attacks  carried out in the name of Islam (see our margin). Most of us can only fight the battle with words. Let’s not spare them.