The War on Terror (or, if you prefer, The War with Militant Islam) is a huge conflict, fought out on myriad battlefields and with a broad diversity of weapons. The open armed conflict is but a part of it, but it's not the whole fight. There are other places, other battles, other warriors where the outcome can sway the final struggle. And while terrorism has not really touched America since 9/11, make no mistake in thinking we are safe.

One of the main thrusts of the Islamists in America is to win their fights not on the battlefields, but in other areas. The court of public opinion, the legal system, the halls of government itself. And there the weapons they are using are, much like in Iraq, not of their own devising, but bought, stolen, or freely given to them by their enemies.

Right now, I am seeing an open assault on our Constitutional liberties by the Islamists, using the tools we ourselves crafted, and it's starting with the First Amendment.

No good tyranny can survive without the silencing of dissent. It was knowing that fact that made our Founding Fathers enshrine the freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights, and put it in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Right now, that right of free speech is being assailed in our courtrooms, in two battles that could shape the very way our society functions.

In Boston, the Islamic Society of Boston is trying to build a mosque. A big one. A very big one. And some people don't like their plan, or just plain have some questions about it. So, how is the Islamic Society handling their detractors? Through our legal system.

And in Washington, DC, a former director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations is concerned about the sway of certain "Jewish lobbies" have on our government. In response, she has filed a formal complaint with the Department Of Justice seeking some form of redress.

The language and tactics of these lawsuits are familiar, and well they should be. They use the precise language and terminology and arguments that so many on the Left have used in their own assaults on the First Amendment: "hate language," "hostile environment," "conducive to the denial of rights," and so on. One could take an average "speech code" from most any college campus, cut it up into phrases, and rearrange it to spell out the Muslims' complaints -- and that is no coincidence. It is those very successes that these Muslims are using as precedents to justify their own oppressive lawsuits.

The whole theory behind the "speech code" movement was to remove -- or minimize -- pain in our society. To prevent people from being injured -- deliberately or accidentally -- by the words of others. It's a fine, noble sentiment, but unfortunately is utterly unreasonable.

Pain serves a purpose. It is a warning system. It's the body's way of telling the mind that it's doing something wrong. When something hurts, we OUGHT to know why it hurts, and whether we ought to change what we are doing.

Sometimes pain is a good thing. When working out, pain can tell us that we are, indeed, using the muscles that we have ignored for too long. Or it can tell us that we are doing something wrong, and we should stop or modify our actions. In either case, though, being protected from the pain is doing us a grave disservice.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Today, we see the consequences of trying to protect people from emotional pain. That shield is being turned into a sword, and it's pointing directly at our most important freedoms.

Thank you SO much, you "champions of diversity" and "fighters of hate-speech" and other lions of Political Correctness. You've turned the mote in your eye into a beam that all of us are being beaten over the head with.

And for letting you get away with it, maybe we deserve it.