from emphatically saying killing clergy is an objective to going “violence will be necessary in some cases to politically marginalize them” like the least convincing attempt at a motte-and-bailey that I’ve ever seen

Thank you for pointing this out. I had the strange feeling of arguing with a shifting target when I was writing some of my replies in this thread. When I read it all again to double-check, I realized that that was what was going on, but it’s nice to see someone else point it out explicitly.