Sometimes It's Too Easy

Jeff Jacoby's latest article reviews Prayers for the Assassins, a thriller by Robert Ferrigno that details life in a hypothetical Islamic Republic of America. Life as run by militant Islam turns out not to be so pleasant for Christian Americans.

Of course, life run by Militant Christian Dominionists would be similarly unpleasant, I suppose. Jacoby flags this up himself, actually.

Many converts to Islam find comfort and reassurance in its moral certainty and firm standards, and Ferrigno underscores the point. "Don't tell me about the old days, girl, I lived through them," says one character, a top government official. "Drugs sold on street corners. Guns everywhere. God driven out of the schools and courthouses. Births without marriage, rich and poor, so many bastards you wouldn't believe me. A country without shame. Alcohol sold in supermarkets. Babies killed in the womb, tens of millions of them. . . . We are not perfect, not by any measure, but I would not go back to those days for anything."

That sounds a lot like what the Christian Dominionists would say if they got in charge.

He also ends with the standard chilling formulation. We need to fight terrorism in the Conservative way or we want the terrorists to win! That's nonsense. It's kind of insane to imagine the Islamic citizens of the United States taking over (the Dominionists have a much better chance, but even they have a long way to go). And the Republican way of fighting Terrorism (by invading Iraq and getting bogged down) seems open to criticism at the very least.