Gay, atheist, marxist, muslim, seem like contradictions but in his case I believe they all apply.
Socialists believe they are democrats but in fact they are all looking for a king to set things aright. You have an “unholy” coalition between the people who want to be taken care of, and the ones who believe they will be among the elite taking care of them.
So many of them envision a bucolic world, the masses toiling happily in the verdant fields, while they look out over them from their high tower. They think deep thoughts and seek the very best for the little people out there.
Add in a bit of the old ultra-violence to keep things spiced up, and you have the caliphate. Since most people, especially academics, tend to believe they’ll be one of the ones in the tower, and not one of the ones toiling happily in the fields, or one of the ones having his head severed from his neck, caliphate sounds just fine.
There is another element that occurred to me. When you look at the generations of bohemians who fled to Morocco to live lives doing things you couldn’t legally do back home, there is in the western mind the idea that Islam has some kind of escape clause or bubble that somehow applies to them.
One thing many forget is that God did not WANT to establish a kingdom in Israel. He warned them about the abuses that kings would institute.
At the time of Moses, God established what looked to be an independent people united by a judge/judicial system that tied into their religious system. When they stayed close to it, they stayed united and able to overcome external enemies. When they departed from it, they fragmented and were ripe pickings for external enemies.
Imagine our system of judges with no politicians and parties.
The judicial oath, or any oath for that matter, means nothing to them:
I, too, have noticed that, Marron. There appears to be some sense among western liberals that they are immune from the brutality of Islam. They see their relationship to muslims as some kind of throwback to a colonial period in which they would be overseers, and the locals would continue their Islamic lives ignoring the liberals living near them and lording over them. It can only be some fantasy created for them by Hollywood or derived from that bygone colonial era.
They, of course, would be the 'good' masters, and the muslims would be the happy servants going about their daily lives.