Strong convictions have nothing to do with morality. You are trying to make the connection to justify that have to have as fanatical a moral outllook as the Islamists do. That's what this argument is really all about. You've convinced yourself that we will lose unless we adopt strong principles, preferably, your principles, with all the ancillary baggage that goes with them. The obviously corollary is that anyone without your principles is not only unprincipled and amoral, but leading us to disaster. From there it leads inevitably to everyone who rejects your line of reasoning is not only a fool, coward, traitor, etc. but now evil as well.

Can't you see how patronizing this is? Can't you see how you have constructed this cantilevered argument like a house of cards, so every leg supports the other but there is no base or foundation except some vague hand-waving about morals. What morals? It is a tapestry of self-reinforcing memes, a tissue of sophistry intricately devised to justify what you have already decided is self-evident, mostly because you find it emotionally comforting and intellectually satisfying. Is it any wonder people not only reject your arguments, but that they are outraged and insulted by them?

Like any introspective man with a little life experience under his belt, I have spent a lifetime pondering these issues and trying, maybe not always succeeding, but trying my best to do the right thing and make sense of life and my relation to the universe, my species, my country, my community, my family and myself. I do this not because I feel I have to or god tells me to, but because I want to. THAT is morality. I'm not sure I have it all figured out yet, which is why I take the trouble to engage in dialogues like this; but the very fact that I am not certain and perhaps I'm not always right leads me to believe I'm on the right track and that at least I'm not fooling myself too badly. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to be lectured to, to be talked down to in this fashion? What morality could you possibly be talking about that I haven't already spent long sleepless agonizing nights wrestling with?