Investor's Business Daily published an editorial yesterday that listed a number of recent incidents of sudden violence against strangers by people with Muslim backgrounds; the most recent entries are the hit-and-run driver in San Francisco and the Jewish-center shooter in Seattle. I guess it's an impressive list; similar lists have been making their way around Wingnuttia recently. (IBD's editorials are often indistinguishable from wingnut Internet rants.) The editorial uses a term for the perceived phenomenon that I've also seen elsewhere: "freelance terrorism."

But here's the thing: Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this is a real phenomenon. Let's say there really are Muslims who are killing and wounding strangers in sudden attacks not because they're dangerous nutcases who've snapped but because ... well, I don't know how to finish that sentence.

And that's the problem. What would be the source of this? And therefore, what would you do about it?

If there is an actual person or group of persons, or if there are several persons or groups, behind all these "freelance terrorists" -- now, there's a conspiracy theory for you -- then by all means find the perps. If you're sending people out to commit such acts, I want you to be discovered and brought to justice.

But if that's not the case -- if there are no "cells" or "cabals" or "conspiracies" of this kind -- then what the hell are we supposed to do?

It seems to me me have two choices:

(1) Deal with each case as an isolated incident involving only the individual perp, assuming we fail to find any co-conspirators; or
(2) Round up all Muslims and put them in camps.

I know there's something truly soul-satisfying to wingnuts about the latter notion, but they won't recommend it out loud -- at least not yet. They know it still goes against American values.

So they're looking for something between (1) and (2). The problem is, there is nothing between (1) and (2).

Either you find a source of this phenomenon -- or it's not a phenomenon. It's just a bunch of nuts. Nuts, perhaps, whose nuttiness in marbled with Islamicist anger (just as the nuttiness of other violent nuts has long been marbled with Christianity-based anger) -- but nuts nonetheless.

You can't arrest an ideology. You can't -- except using extreme authoritarianism -- ban an idea. All you can do is pursue individual criminals and criminal groups, while working to counter messages of hate with other messages.

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Of course, the guy in San Francisco hit blacks, whites, and Asians with his car. Funny way to terrorize Jews, if that's what we're supposed to believe he was trying to do.