The First Commandment, by Brad Thor

Brad Thor writes action thrillers featuring hero Scot Harvath, former SEAL and Secret Service Agent. In this novel, a terrorist is targeting people that Harvath cares about. It was a fun read, if you can handle the detailed scenes where Harvath tortures bad guys for information.

But there were two passages that struck me. First,

"Being happy boils down to three things. Something to do. Someone to love. And something to look forward to."

Second, a surprisingly strongly-worded rant.

"Harvath supposed there were parallels between Christ and Atlas. Judeo-Christian values were one of the few things holding up the modern civilized world against the barbaric hordes of Muslim extremists. Harvarth had to laugh at himself. The term Muslim extremist was starting to wear on him. It was PC-speak, something he loathed in others and absolutely despised in himself. The term was meant to draw a distinction between good Muslims and bad, but as far as he was concerned every single day that good Muslims did absolutely nothing about the atrocities being committed in their name, the line between good Muslim and bad Muslim became even more blurred.

All that was necessary for evil to triumph was for good people to do nothing. Harvath saw it every day, and he was determined that his nation would not be overrun by Islam. The French were already a lost cause and many other nations were following suit by allowing Islamic courts of law, banning historically significant symbols, icons, and pastimes as innocent as coed swimming to appease their rapidly growing and ever more vociferous Muslim minorities. Multiculturalism was bullshit. It was political correctness run amok and it made him sick. If these people wanted things to be exactly as they were in their countries of origin, why didn't they just remain there?

Many of Harvath's opinions may have sounded xenophobic, but he'd earned the right to them. He'd been on the front lines of the war on terror and had seen what the extremists were capable of. Radical Islam was as much about carefully and deliberately applied creativity and ideas as it was about bombs and bullets.

In America, expertly organized cells of so called 'moderate Muslims' were waging an ideological jihad, working to undermine everything that the country stood for. They were a patient and determined enemy bent upon turning the nation into the United States of Islam, and many people responsible for protecting America were not paying attention.

Between the tidal wave of illegal immigration and radical Islamic agenda in America, there were times when Harvath felt like weeping for his nation."

Wow.