&gt; I fear, though, militant religious sects may not have the same self control.<p>But that could actually be an advantage. The more people see them for the nutcases they are the shorter the path to a possible solution.<p>&gt; I fear that the inability or lack of willingness to meet violence with violence may be the downfall of rationality. We rightfully shun violence in place of discussion, but as is evident (again), we are not dealing with rational actors.<p>The danger in dealing with non-rational actors is that rational people will either do one of two things: they will join the non-rational actors and will respond non-rationally themselves, <i>or</i> they will persist in setting up a rational frame of reference for dialogue with the non-rational actors, which clearly will not work.<p>So the solution is to treat non-rational actors as exactly what they are: crazy, and deal with them accordingly.