Those determined to portray the life of American Muslims as a never-ending series of officially inspired torments have always confronted a basic problem: there is no tangible evidence that there is any wave of oppression that has reduced followers of Islam to second-class citizen status. Nor has there ever been. FBI crime statistics continue to show anti-Muslim hate cries dwarfed by those linked to Jew-hatred. Even when the mainstream media takes up the subject and treats the truth of this assertion as self-evident, such as last August’s TIME magazine cover story that asked “Does America Have a Muslim Problem?” the authors had to admit that all they can come up with to back their claim were anecdotes.

But that doesn’t stop those determined to force the country to repent of its supposed sins. The latest example is a blog post from New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal that is breathtaking in its lack of intellectual integrity. While readers of his editorial page are accustomed to outrageous hyperbole delivered in the Times’ trademark tone of condescension, Rosenthal appears to have no limits in the depths of absurdity he is willing to plumb on behalf of his cause. Rosenthal not only hypes the post-9/11 myth, but goes so far as to assert that the United States has now established a “separate justice system” for Muslims. His proof: the fact that the New York City Police Department conducted a program of surveillance on mosques and community groups where Islamists were suspected to congregate. Oh and don’t forget Guantanamo Bay, which the Times editor describes as a “special detention center for Muslims.” So intent is Rosenthal on proving that America is hostile to Muslims that it seems to have slipped his mind the only reason the NYPD or the federal government is somewhat concerned about radical Muslims is because Islamist groups attacked the United States.

Rosenthal also makes a meal out of the revelation that FBI training material at one time contained statements that might have been inflammatory. The “crude stereotypes” that Rosenthal cites have since been rejected. But he leaves it unclear whether this offensive material was referring to all Muslims or just radical Islamists. It is true that the vast majority of American Muslims are not terrorists, but hard-working law-abiding American citizens. But Islamists, including those that work to fundraise for rationalize the efforts of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and other radicals are not figments of the imagination of over-zealous law enforcement personnel. They are real threats and absent the vigilance of organizations like the NYPD, they would have done far more harm than they already have.

Any rational examination of post-9/11 American society would reveal quite the opposite of Rosenthal’s overheated charges. Despite the fact that the 9/11 terrorists and their allies justified their crimes in their faith, the instinctual response of the overwhelming majority of Americans and their government was to make it clear that they didn’t hold their Muslim neighbors responsible for any of it. Muslims were subjected to no official discrimination and there is no evidence that there was much, if any, unofficial prejudice. If anything, the popular culture of post-9/11 America went out of its way to avoid the depiction of Muslim villains or to connect the dots between al-Qaeda, bin Laden and the Islamist interpretation of that faith that is widely supported in the Middle East.

To allude, as Rosenthal does to the mass detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II, actually debunks his own assertion since in the wake of the latter-day Pearl Harbor, not only were Muslims not subjected to anything remotely like the treatment of the Japanese, but were actually actively protected by the government from even the slightest hint of discrimination. Anyone who doubts that should remember how President George W. Bush went weak at the knees at the idea that the U.S. was fighting a war against what he continually described as a “religion of peace.” The notion that Americans have sacrificed their liberties to ensure their security is another myth that was quite popular four years ago when liberals were using the charge to paint the Bush administration as a pseudo-tyranny that needed to be swept away by Barack Obama and the Democrats. But since Obama has largely kept the same policies in place (including keeping Guantanamo open), that is a trope we hear very little of these days.

While many liberals have longed for the world of September 10, 2001 before the attacks uncovered the truth of the Islamist war on the West, Rosenthal goes that mentality one better. He treats every measure taken to defend the country against terror is not merely unnecessary but a deliberate act of bias. By claiming that America only provides “liberty and justice for non-Muslims,” he seems to be trying to pretend the attacks and the hate-filled ideology that brought them about never even happened.