The Left and Islam; peas in a pod

I wonder if Andrew C. McCarthy has sent a thank you card to the organizers of the Gaza Flotilla. You see he's written a book about how the Left and Islam (not radical Islam or Islamist, just Islam) are two peas in the freedom denying pod. Diana West interviewed him in her latest article.

For all their disagreements on matters like women's rights, gay rights and abortion, Islam and the Left are in harmony on big-picture matters: They are authoritarian, totalitarian in the sense of wanting to control all aspects of human existence, virulently anti-capitalist, and regard the individual as existing merely to serve the collective.

Part of me thinks there's little point in pointing out the nonsense on display here. But it is sort of my job.

1. Practitioners of Islam exist peacefully and are contributing citizens in all western societies including our own. Condemning the religion as some sort of fifth column, as McCarthy does, is extraordinarily dishonest.

2. Leftists do not actually want to control all aspects of human existence; they simply want to use the power of the Government to prevent actions that they consider destructive to society as a whole. Kind of like how many Conservatives would like to use the power of the Government to push their anti-homosexual agenda.

3. It is just as valid to suggest that conservatives wish to keep the individuals weak to support another collective - i.e. the corporation. Conservatives constantly take steps to keep individuals weak and divided so that they are necessarily in thrall to Corporations.

Still, McCarthys thesis certainly would justify actions like boarding a flotilla in international waters and shooting the people on board. It would probably justify far worse actions; forced conversion for example.