There is a chasm between Americans on the subject of ethics. 

On one side are those who feel we have lost the right to discriminate between ideologies that are acceptable in America and those that do not qualify. 

On the other side are those who feel we must always exercise this discrimination if we are to retain our national identity and our ability to defend ourselves. 

An exchange I recently had with a friend shed some light on this chasm.  His response to my piece Talk to Your Muslim Friends contained these points: 

• He was unable to judge Islam on a plain reading of the Koran.  The confusion centered on the doctrine of abrogation and the contradictions between the early (Meccan) and late (Medinan) Koranic verses.  
• His personal dislike of George Bush and his administration’s policies, especially the invasion of Iraq in 2003, were given as  reasons for claiming that America no longer had the right to criticize anyone. 
• He excused dangerous and illegal Islamic teachings by claiming that Christianity has equally wrong teachings (the fallacy in logic called tu quoque—avoiding a charge of wrongdoing by charging others with the same or worse wrongdoing).
• He added other reasons, in addition to the Iraq war, why Americans have lost the moral standing necessary to criticize anyone else’s behavior.   

My friend wrote:

[…]I believe that if that [an] entity (a religion, organization, or person) does something terrible to another that they lose the privilege (in my mind, at least) to criticize or take action.

If I had previously respected Gov. Sanford, I would now have lost all respect for him and probably dismissed his promulgations regarding clean living and family values.

I quit the Catholic Church when priests were found guilty of molestation, and soon after became atheist as I considered what MY god would permit in this world.

Hypocrisy neutralizes one’s stone throwing arm.

And later added:

[…]  While I admit I'm ignorant [of] Islamic teaching, I cannot help but draw corollaries with the behavior of our own leadership and populace in world affairs.

This is not meant to suggest we should ignore radical Islam, but that we should consider changes we can make to our own society to reduce self inflicted and specifically targeted transgressions.

I have no doubt we'll be attacked at some time in the future - I think a good way to deal with the eventuality is to build up the integrity of our country to once again be a force which other countries respect and not despise, as we'll only protect ourselves, in the big scheme of things, through joint efforts with other countries to start solving problems, e.g., I think we should pay more attention to controlling the content of containers shipping to our country than to the radicals who might enter; I think it would be more effective to control radical Islamic teaching in the prisons than to change the teachings of those in the mountains of Pakistan.

I responded:

[…]  My main disagreement with the majority opinion now is about the advisability of inviting to our country a vehicle such as Islam that serves the political ends of organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist and Wahhabist revolutionary movements--al Qaeda, etc.

You mentioned Radical Islam.  Radical Islam and the peaceful, Moderate Islam are the two faces of Islam.  Both equally valid in the Koran.  The part of the Koran written in Mecca describes a peaceful religion.  The part of the Koran written later in Medina describes the entity we now call Radical Islam.  They are not at war with each other, they work in tandem in a dualistic system of ethics.  […] 

I described my book as an attempt to explain why Islamic law should be declared seditious in America.  That's because the law of Islam promotes the use of violence to overthrow non-Muslim governments.  The fact that there are peaceful, law-abiding Muslims does not mean that Islam is either.  Islamic law and American law are entirely incompatible.  One has to give.   

It is entirely possible that there will never be another terrorist attack in America.  That would be my move if I were on the other side.  Without a change in our immigration policies, we could look like Europe in 25 years.  Invasion by immigration and birth rate.  Holland is now where Serbia was in the early 90's.  I wonder if I will be around to see which European state will become the next Kosovo, if not Holland.   

We can either continue to castigate ourselves for past errors or we can start acting on a demonstrated threat.