My Mother is a good woman, and I love her very much. She is one of the best and nicest people I know. She is for the most part rational, very intelligent, benevolent, possessed of incredible strength of conviction, and she's a great parent, too.

She is also an environmentalist.

"What's this", I hear you say? "An environmentalist?"

"Isn't environmentalism itself the most evil meme spreading amongst Western civilisation today? Don't the more extreme environmentalists, driven by the nonsense premise of intrinsic value, demand the extinction of the entire human species? And don't those who share the same premises as the extremists keep quiet, because they can't consistently attack the extremists' position without undermining the premises supporting their own?"

Yes. All of the above is true.

But how does this relate to how I deal with my mother?

Simply put: I call it as I see it when talking with her. I explain how environmentalism is evil, and try to explain how her support for a ban on nuclear power is based upon the same premises as Dr. Pianka's call for the extermination of 90% of the human species - which she properly regards as evil, without examining the underlying premises.

When something bad happens as a consequence of environmentalism (say, the RMA prevents highway construction for fear of disturbing a mythical sea-monster) then I point out that it's the policies she voted for that enabled it.

But you know what? My mother isn't actually evil.

I can call environmentalism evil, but this doesn't mean that I think my mother is evil. Obviously, she realises this, too. She realises that I think she's wrong - and she thinks the same of me, and has told me so on many occasions.

So replace my mother with 'generic New Zealand Muslim', and environmentalism with 'Islam', and what do you get?

Islam is evil. It is the most evil meme spreading throughout the non-Western world at the moment. Driven by the irrational worship of Allah and Mohammed, Islamic extremists murder, torture, and oppress.

But you know what?

Mr. Generic NZ Muslim isn't evil either, and my denunciation of Islam in such incredibly strong terms (which would literally mean the death of me in many countries) doesn't mean I think he's evil. As with environmentalism and Dr. Pianka, the closer Mr. G. comes to living in accordance with the word of the Quran, the closer he comes to becoming another Bin Laden or Zawahiri. But just as the majority of environmentalists don't call for the death of the entire human species, the majority of Muslims (but not as large a majority as you'd expect) don't call for war against infidels.

Islam is the single greatest threat to Western civilisation at the moment. But that doesn't mean that all Muslims should be treated as evil; rather, they should be judged on their merits as individuals.

To me, a Muslim who supports a ban on expressions that offend Muslims occupies the same position as someone who supports the RMA. A Muslim who defaces non-Islamic religions icons occupies the same position as a Wild Green tearing up GE crops. And so it goes ...

What I haven't yet managed to do is work out why those who disagree with my estimation of the threat posed by Islam assume that, because I denounce Islam as unspeakable evil, I must also view every Muslim in the world as being unspeakably evil. I'm sure that assumption illustrates a significant fact about their thought processes, if only I could work it out ...