Now the whole world is agog with abject fascination and horror at the Imus debacle – as if he never said a racist remark before – and yet I avoid the whole subject like a treatise on 1950’s air conditioning unit repair. Why?

In conversations about Islamism which I define as a state system which also enforces moral laws derived from Islamic texts, its supporters bring up a common point about public drunkeness or what some consider public lewdness. Indeed, at least in the US there are laws against them, but not at the level that they say the Quran demands. However, I would say that the Quran seeks for people to want not to sin and it does not directly call for a state to enforce such laws. I would further argue that enforcing such laws on outward behavoir are 1) useless and 2) require a anti-Quranic dictatorship to enforce.