The Illogic of Collective Responsibility

Reasonable, moderate, thinking man’s birther Tom Maguire comes out against an Islamic cultural center desecrating sacred Burlington Coat Factory ground. None of his arguments are good, of course, but this one might be the most specious attempt to rationalize the bigotry I’ve heard yet:

Muslim extremists will join with Islamophobes [glad you’re conceding what the underlying motivation is, at least –ed.] in deeming it a Victory Mosque; moderates will insist it is not. And of course, given our Constitutional freedom of speech and worship, there will be no legal mechanism to ensure that today’s moderate founders won’t be replaced by tomorrow’s extremists.

Similarly, since the 1st Amendment contains no mechanism that permits the state to preemptively stop Christian churches from being taken over by Operation Rescue sympathizers, we cannot allow Christian churches to be built in any city where a woman might want to obtain an abortion. It’s perfectly logical! Although since by Maguire/Palin logic all Christians are in some sense responsible for the terrorist who murdered George Tiller I’m not sure why the distinction between moderates and extremists is even relevant…