Catch XXII

Theodore Dalrymple (via IGST) points out the fundamental flaw of Islamism:

"The problem is that so many Muslims want both stagnation and power: they want a return to the perfection of the seventh century and to dominate the twenty-first, as they believe is the birthright of their doctrine, the last testament of Allah to man. If they were content to exist in a seventh-century backwater, secure in a quietist philosophy, there would be no problem for them or us; their problem, and ours, is that they want the power that free inquiry confers, without either the free inquiry or the philosophy and institutions that guarantee that free inquiry."

That seems to parallel the fundamental flaw of the reconquistadorks - wanting the benefits of being American without being American.