Liberals have a serious problem with their reasoning because they have adopted a set of positive-sum rules that let them be happy for others and do good things for others. These good things are great and they all work when they encounter people who are also willing to play by those rules.

https://youtu.be/1KDvRZVQLog

A liberal democratic society is the highest standard for a country in the modern world, and seems to be the most successful way to structure a society, but it can only exist successfully if the free and liberal democratic notions are reciprocated by most of the others in that society to correctly exercise their freedom to act responsibly.

But when a society works well according to the free liberal modern democratic standard, and finds success in that, it isn’t well prepared when it meets another culture that has a zero-sum ethos like Muslim societies tend to have.

It is difficult for the liberals in western democratic societies to see the differences between them and the less modern societies because many of the principles in those societies simply don’t make sense. The other side isn’t going to play the liberal democratic game. And if the positive liberal overtures aren’t working for the other societies, then the liberal line of thought thinks that it isn’t the fault of the Islamic society, but rather the fault of the liberal’s approach, and that it must mean that the liberal democratic society isn’t doing enough to appease the Islamic society.

Self blame comes into play. It becomes a function thinking that everything is a function of me. If something bad happens like 9/11, it must be my or our fault. We aren’t perfect, but it must be asked why the other people did this to us.

As a side note, Richard mentions that historically, America has been relatively good to Muslim countries compared to how the European countries treated the Muslim world.

So the liberal paradox is that since the liberals think of themselves as good people, and think of all others as good people, they aren’t able to let go of the notion that all others are good people. Liberals are just not equipped to deal with bad people who will use the great liberal principles against them.

Richard calls such people Demopaths. Such people use the great western principles like liberty, equality, freedom of speech, humanity to get what they need out of the western liberal society, but themselves not play by those rules. And in any case when it is up to them to grant rights to other people, they don’t do it at all. So they are not committed to these values, they just use it to get things to get their way. But many people use democracy to destroy democracy. And liberals don’t readily believe that we have real enemies who want to destroy the democracies that we created.

The Muslim world does not want democracy. They want sharia law.
In the Muslim world, it is about loyalty to Sharia and the Muslim world and religion. They will always or almost always choose that rather than what is really right or wrong. In the western liberal mindset, it is often the mindset of self-blame and more often than not agreeing that the western approach is somehow wrong and has been doing wrong to Muslims whereas the Muslims simply use that notion to their advantage.