Last Thursday was the final session of the three-part lecture series presented by Jihad-Watch's Robert Spencer. (Here are links to Parts 1 and 2.) My notes this time are pretty poor, so forgive me as this may be a bit dis-jointed. I wrote down some of the statements that stuck out at me, but this is far from everything.

The theme of this session was basically, "OK, so now that we know there's a problem, what can we do about it?" Spencer presented his "14 Points" that may add up to a solution. Of course, I didn't seem to get them all down, sorry 'bout that.

Here are some of my notes, skipping the introduction in which Spencer covered information he hit in the previous two sessions - read on or skip down to the end for a few musings of my own:

- Point 1) [My numbering is almost certainly wrong, and I've also missed a few, but for the sake of some sort of organization I've made a stab at it.] We still refer, and the President still refers to "The War on Terror," Spencer reminded us that terror is the tactic, not the root cause. Dutch Authorities have at least declared war on "Islamic Extremism." We're really fighting the same thing - the same people. The first thing we need to do is name the threat honestly. CAIR gives "sensitivity training" to the FBI. This is bizarre. It would be unthinkable that during WW2 a Nazi group could come build a place here - yet a group like the ISB comes and builds a mosque with absolutely no questions asked. We need to put pressure on them to get answers. "The moderates are the recruiting grounds for the radicals." If the Muslims won't open up, then we have no choice but to view all with suspicion.

- Point 2) We must bring people to realize that Islam has a socio-political as well as a religious character so it doesn't necessarily come under the same rubric as current domestic institutions - there are issues of tax-exempt status for instance.

- Point 3) Ismlamic schools - we must monitor the teachers, text books, curriculum - shut down those who teach hatred. Likewise with the nation's prison system - we must monitor who the Islamic Chaplains are and ensure they are not radicalizing the convicts. Same with the Universities - we must monitor what is being taught.

- Point 4) We must call on the moderates to back their words with actions. The moderates must help in self-policing, casting out the radicals from their midsts.

- Point 5) Terminate all aid to any Islamic nation that teaches or allows to be taught violent Jihad. Warn those countries that their relationship with the US depends on their treatment of their non-Muslim populations. (As recently as 1948, 15% of the Middle East was Christian, now it is 2%.)

- [I missed a bunch here as my notes pick up at #10] Redeploy US troops to face today's war, not yesterday's (we're already doing this to a great extent).

- Point 11) Support alternative energy sources - a new Manhattan Project would not be out the question here.

- Point 12) The Drug War - Understand the bag guys use drug sales for funding.

-Point 13 I missed, so Point 14) Seek after new International Alliances - threaten to withdraw funding to the UN unless it shapes up. It's not likely to happen any time soon - it will require a lot of pressure.

Sorry. This one isn't quite as illuminating as my previous reports of this nature.

I would now like to take a few paragraphs to muse over the long-term picture. Specifically, the unique role the United States may play in "moderating" Islam - or, more specifically, in facilitating Muslims' efforts to moderate their own religion. See if you can follow me.

Events in the Netherlands have lead to proposals on the part of the Dutch such as requiring all Imams who wish to preach in the Netherlands to have received their training there - no more importing of foreign Islamic preachers and their brand of heated Middle Eastern rhetoric. Following an undercover video investigation into a German mosque, there are actually calls being made for all preaching to be done in German rather than Arabic. Some in Europe are catching on to the problem.

But here's our problem: Such measures are utterly impossible to implement here in the United States due to our Constitutional protections of freedom of religion. The government cannot possibly prescribe the language of religious preaching, nor can it involve itself in the qualifications of religious instructors, nor can it have any say at all in such matters as go on inside religious institutions short of outright incitement to violence.

This sounds like a handicap for us, and perhaps it is as far as it goes. But on a deeper level, this is actually a strength. Not allowing the government direct involvement in religious affairs (and the right of assembly and conscience that go along with it) has served us very well for all these years, of course, but it may be reasonable to ask, is this not a new type of imported threat that our traditional protections are insufficiently vigorous in dealing with?

Not necessarily. With the government unable to become involved, it requires ordinary citizens to stay engaged and interested for themselves. It requires us to be involved and let it be known on a grass-roots level what is acceptable and what is not, and the moral pressures that may be applied can come more organically - from large sectors of society, rather than from the narrow scope of government involvement with the accompanying resistance that that engenders. Where better to effect social change, through widespread force of personality or the courts?

Europe is handicapped in that its well-meaning but utterly wrong-headed hate-speech laws have hobbled its ability to allow a true marketplace of ideas to emerge. The Dutch are just now starting to face up to this fact. While America has dipped a toe in the water in this regard, fortunately we have not gone down that path as far as our European brethren have. An unique environment exists in America that allows the free exchange of ideas without government interference. That means we are still able to criticize others, including their religion, and all we have to face in response is the PC police - powerful, yes, but still a far cry from the real kind they have to deal with much of Europe (and forget the rest of the world where the free exchange of ideas simply does not exist in any meaningful sense of the word).

Again, what this leaves us with is a unique situation here in America, with a strong government that can act as referee, prevent violence and facilitate an atmosphere where ideas can be exchanged and moral pressure put without the fear of violence erupting. Muslim populations are still small enough that law enforcement can do so, while Constitutional protections exist to protect this small population from the line where pressure for actions and answers cross over into persecution - something no one should want.

Let me emphasize again that the American Government's power is highly limited. They should, indeed must, overcome the PC and legal protests to go in and monitor the mosques on the inside, but at the end of the day, they can only deal with direct threats of violence, not the more base-level ideologies from which these thoughts of violence emanate. The elimination of that must come from within, or the FBI and company will be forever playing a prevention game with no end. Changes of root ideologies must come from within and pressure from society at large demanding such changes can help push it along. We must be able to say, "We welcome you into the American pluralist system, but in order for us to continue to do so, we must be assured that you truly fit it."

Again, America, with its protections of free speech, its already existing multi-faceted pluralistic society with all manner of religious (where religion is still respected, not just tolerated) and even anti-religious thought to draw on is uniquely situated to provide the environment to serve as the agar in which a new germ of American Muslim thought could possibly emerge.

In much of the world today, Muslim reformers risk being branded apostates and killed - not just in the Middle East, but also in places like Europe with large Muslim populations. America may be able to provide the environment in which true reformers, willing to re-examine the tenets of their faith from the ground-up, can be seeded in a fertile ground through which they can prosper.

What results will have the benefit of being an organic - ground-up - outgrowth, coming without government interference - thus giving it deeper legitimacy and wider base of support. Just as Judaism, adapting to the fact that it was a minority religion, long ago forbade proselytizing in order to survive and prosper - to adapt to new circumstance - perhaps a new "American Islam" may also come about to adapt to the realities of surviving in a pluralistic society.

Our armed forces can face and destroy any armed force on this planet, and I have written at length previously about my support for the Administration's efforts to destroy physical threats abroad and try to implant the germ of Freedom inside the borders of Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam). We are trying to bring our secular freedoms along - freedom of the press, of speech, of conscience, of representation to the government and that is good. Further, much of the spread of Freedom has occurred without government involvement at all. How many people the world over yearn to live like Americans due to what they see in the movies and in images they see elsewhere and through our advertising. But these are mostly generic, secular, freedoms that do not speak uniquely to the Muslim World. Wouldn't it be ironic if, along with all that, America brought along and implanted the germ of a new form of tolerant, pluralistic Islam that was allowed to germinate and grow and multiply in the uniquely fertile ground only America can provide - a sort of ideological biological warfare on a massive and uncontrolled scale?

I conclude then with a list of a few of the things that need to happen, or continue to happen, in order for this to occur:

1) The government must see to its basic goal of protecting the citizenry. That means it must be supported in its efforts to resist the forces of Political Correctness, CAIR, the ACLU and the like and must make it its business to find out what is going on in the Mosques here at home. Preaching of violence must not be tolerated, and Mosques must not be allowed to serve as protected places for terrorist plotting under the protection of religious institutions.

2) Oppose hate-speech legislation of any kind. The free marketplace of ideas must be protected. Ideas must be able to be shared freely by a free people. Even offensive speech must be protected so that it can be examined on its merits, not made criminal on the whim of some bureaucrat or court.

3) Understand that Islam is here to stay - both in America and the world. We must hold a supporting hand out to the true, sincere and brave reformers, not drive Muslims underground and thus create a new breed of Maranos. Fighting Islam as a whole is as counter-productive as it is fruitless.

4) Keep watch for ourselves on what is going on in the Mosques - be particularly watchful of any foreign influences and interferences. What we want to do is reverse the flow of Wahhabi fundamentalist thought in on itself. Stop them from influencing us here by preventing them from visiting and discouraging domestic institutions from accepting their money. It should be the equivalent of a third rail to touch money coming in from the Arabian peninsula. We need to get that flow going in the other direction.

5) Speak out firmly but not hatefully while working to co-opt the forces of the Politically Correct. We need to define what is PC or not, not allow groups like CAIR, the campus race-merchants and others to define it for us.

6) Do what is necessary to encourage new religious institutions to comport themselves in a manner in keeping with traditional American values of religious openness and pluralism. Does that Mosque treat believers and non-believers the same?

This is going to be a long-term struggle, but I believe the conditions exist uniquely in America - in its society, its people and its Constitutional structure - to make it happen.