Tiny points of light

Writing in today's LA Times with clarity and force, Sam Harris chastises fellow liberals for ignoring the grave threat posed to our civilization by islamic fanaticism. He has put into precise sentences something I've been thinking about for a long time but never wrote down: having ranted for so long about the ills and evils of the Western civilization, the liberals internalized their loathing to the point, where they will not defend this civilization against annihilation. How can a reasonable person respond to this death wish, except by saying, "Fuck you! And may you die a prolonged and horrible death, having your head sawed off with a dull knife by a masked islamic fanatic. On video. You can go to hell, if you so wish, but you're not taking me along."

For the biggest part of my life I considered myself a liberal, albeit in the "classical sense", that is a person who would like to see more freedoms given to individuals to make their own decisions, and fewer restrictions placed by government bureaucrats on the lives of private citizens. I abhorred religious fanatics of any kind and didn't like religions to begin with. But if Christian conservatists are the only people capable of recognizing the threat and willing to fight it, then sign me up. I will become a born-again Jesus freak, if that's necessary to defeat islamic fascism, because I know that our civilization will have a chance to emerge from the temporary darkness imposed on it by Christian fundamentalism - it has done so in the past, it will do it again. But if we lose this battle, if murderous islam turns up victorius, there is no chance for us. Christianity did go through very dark, cruel episodes, but it eventually reformed, adjusted, "civilized" itself. Islam never changed. If anything, it seems to be going backwards, toward barbarism, intolerance, fanaticism, madness.
It is so extremely rare these days to hear a liberal speak up againt the gravest threat our civilization has faced since Nazism, that it is impossible not run toward these tiny points of light, like a child chasing fireflies in a swamp.