Whew! That was a close one.

For a moment there, one could have gotten the impression that those poor, misguided youths snatched up in the Canadian terrorist dragnet might have been mistaken for bloodthirsty jihadists. Instead, like a flock of wayward Canadian geese, we can rest easy because we learn from much of the Canadian press that they represent a “broad strata” of Canadian society.

The accused, dressed casually in jeans or jogging pants and t-shirts, sported traditional Muslim male beards. Most were Canadian citizens or residents.

Police described them as coming from a broad “strata” of society. Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed. The adults range in age from 19 to 43.

You know which “broad strata” they’re talking about, right? It’s the “strata” that features people representing the full panoply of human flotsam and jetsam; drunk with religion, murderous in intent, oblivious to the moral consequences of their planned acts of barbarism, and carrying a deeply flawed and simplistic worldview that justifies all.

Other than that, they’re just plain folks, someone who you might want to invite over for a barbecue if they lived next door.

If we are fortunate enough to survive listening to some of the better angels of our nature that demand obeisance to an ideology of moral relativism, it will be because there will always be enough of us who refuse to play the diversity games so beloved of that segment of our population that sees strength in dividing us. The game has one simple rule; all societies, and by extension, all religions, creeds, races, ethnicities, and cultures are, at bottom, equal. It would be one thing to believe all were equally bad. That, at least, would represent the cynics view of mankind and hence, a realistic appraisal of the capability for evil in our fellow man.

But no. This multi-cultural madness posits the notion that we are all equally good (well, except white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian males), and that evil is a social construct manufactured by the ruling class to keep the black, brown, and yellow man in their place. If allowed to succeed, the people who are teaching this view to our children in schools and creating mass cultural touchstones in film and television that push this concept will create the perfectly diverse society - the multi-cultural Nirvana found in the grave where everyone will be finally and completely equal.

I’m not quite sure what it will take for our intellectual and media elites to be convinced of the folly of their wrongheaded and dangerously myopic view of who and what we are fighting. If 9/11 couldn’t convince them, I hardly think another attack of that size would cause them to alter their perception that denies there are two sides to this conflict - and the ones they should be opposing do not only “[sport] traditional Muslim male beards.” They are radical, Islamic fundamentalists, born into societies where they are taught from birth to hate us, educated in schools and mosques where they are urged to kill us. And nurtured in groups and cells where the means and opportunity to carry out their lifelong quest for revenge and bloodlust are made possible.

Is it asking too much that regardless of our domestic political differences that we at least recognize and agree on who the enemy is?

After reading some of the coverage of the terrorist arrests in Canada, I would have to reluctantly conclude the answer is yes.

UPDATE

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for giving us the “Euphemism of the Day.”