In countries with the guts to say out loud that not everyone is equally deserving of respect, New Year celebrations went off without bloodshed. But here in the United States of Don’t-Judge-Anyone-Or-You’ll-Be-Cancelled, we weren’t so lucky.

A man named Shamsud-Din Jabbar plowed his truck into a crowd of revelers celebrating the new year on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing at least fifteen and injuring dozens more. Then he got out and started shooting people before he was finally gunned down by police.

At first we were told it was “not an act of terrorism” but before the ink was dry on that story, things changed. Not only was it terrorism, it was terrorism by an American-born radical Islamist, a man whose belief system is rooted in Jihad, the idea that all nation-states must be destroyed in favor of allegiance to Allah.

Jabbar said in a video before the murders that he originally planned to kill his family, but decided instead to join Isis and mow down a group of innocent people because he was concerned that if he killed his family the media wouldn’t focus on Islam and the “war between believers and disbelievers.”

Social media is still on fire about why we weren’t told the truth about this guy right away. Jabbar clearly wanted us to know that he was killing for Islam because he flew a black Isis flag on his truck. But law enforcement covered the flag, temporarily depriving us of the ability to understand what happened, and to direct our rage toward the killer and the group he represents. Hiding the motive is weird because it isn’t wrong and it certainly isn’t bigotry to hate people who commit mass murder.

Islamic extremists don’t seem to understand that killing Americans gets them nothing, and will make things much worse for all Muslims in America, especially those who don’t condemn Jabbar for what he did.

For now, at least, Americans will continue to tolerate all religions because the First Amendment tells us that we must. Freedom of religion has priority in our long list of amendments because it was especially important to our founders that we establish no state religion while also forbidding discrimination against all religions, regardless of their small size or purported superiority.

The newfangled tiny church of the holy recycler that sets up shop in a strip mall in Cambridge is the same — in the eyes of the law — as the behemoth religions of Judaism, and Christianity. Try as the big ones might to declare themselves the one true religion, this country will never agree. Better yet, we will defend with force if necessary the right of all people to denounce any religion — or all religions for that matter — as a bunch of hooey, invented by people in power to control the masses.

That Islam emerged after Judaism and Christianity doesn’t make it better or worse — it’s just another cog in the wheel of endless religious cogs. The many factions within Islam make clear that even they don’t have a handle on what the rules are, or who should be in charge.

That said, some radical extremists, like Jabbar, claim to know exactly what Islam requires because they preach and practice death to the nonbelievers.

Killing people to make others submit to certain beliefs isn’t proselytizing, it’s terrorism. “Believe what we say or die” is anything but religion.
Under no view of the First Amendment is this legally permitted, yet Islamist extremists roam freely in this country, as Jabbar did, no doubt thinking about what they can do next to help win the “war between believers and nonbelievers.”

Forcing people to believe in any god is not freedom — and America is nothing without freedom — so if you can’t understand this, or at least conduct yourself accordingly regardless of your beliefs, you should leave the United States before things get worse.

For everyone else, feel free to believe in Allah or Buddha or Mother Goose if you like, but keep it to yourself. If you disagree with someone about who god is, or which religion is best, shut up because nobody wants to hear it. And for chrissake (couldn’t help myself) if you want to inspire others to join your flock, try something other than mass murder.

Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar in his passport photo. (FBI via AP, File)