The journalists were assaulted verbally and physically while New York’s finest looked on, deigning to intervene in much the same way a schoolteacher does with a recalcitrant student – tut-tutting and tsk-tsking – rather than apprehending and jailing the violent assaulters as one would expect on the streets of an American city.

New York City residents were treated to a glimpse of their (and our!) future recently when Egyptian journalists in town to cover the visit of Egyptian president Al-Sisi to the U.N. were assaulted by Muslim Brotherhood agents -- in full view of New York City police.

In the end, after clearly committing crimes of personal violence, the attackers were sent on their way. Not arrested. Not detained. Simply allowed to wander off, their intimidation attack successful and unchallenged.

One cannot imagine a similar response to similar circumstances involving gay men and bigoted attackers, or Muslim men attacked by Hindus. Indeed, our nation’s news feeds are rife with examples of investigation and punishments meted out to miscreants who targeted a “protected” group.

A primary tool of Islamic intimidation is the exploitation of the risk-averse nature of civilized Western democracies. Threaten to riot, and watch the spineless politicians quail in revulsion from the prospect of confrontation.

This is the model by which Islamic enclaves have gained supremacy over entire swaths of major European cities, creating functional "no-go" areas where even the police will not enter for fear of sparking a violent reaction from the Muslim residents. This results in what you might expect – the utter abandonment of native citizens who live in the area or happen to wander into the neighborhood by mistake.

In these cities, the appropriate police response to the assault of these native citizens by the Muslim immigrants (arrest and prosecution for crimes under the host nation’s law) have been forestalled by government interference in the hopes of avoiding a wider incident of civil unrest.

As Nigel Farage – leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) – says:

It's happening right across Europe. We have got no-go zones in most of the big French cities. We've been turning a blind eye to preachers of hate that have been coming here from the Middle East and saying things for which the rest of us would be arrested. In parts of northern England we've seen the sexual grooming of under-age girls committed by Muslim men, in the majority, and for all of these things we are seeing the law not being applied equally, we're seeing the police forces not doing their job because we've suffered from moral cowardice. We have through mass immigration and through not checking the details of those people who have come to our countries, we have allowed big ghettos to develop and when it comes to confronting tough issues we're run a mile and that is why we're in the mess we're in, we've been led very badly. … So, wherever you look, wherever you look you see this blind eye being turned and you see the growth of ghettos where the police and all the normal agents of the law have withdrawn and that is where Sharia law has come in.

In other words, the governments of these nations have largely allowed Muslims to beat, rape, and sometimes kill individuals with functional impunity, as long as they don’t start widespread rioting that will endanger our chances in the next election.

It is the height of appeasement, and the depth of civil depravity, all in one disgusting convulsion of fecklessness.

Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, in a Fox News interview January 11, 2015, said, “There are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.”

The usual suspects on the political left wasted no time in demanding that Fox issue an apology for permitting Emerson to malign an entire religion with a demonstrable falsehood. Fox (and Emerson) complied, issuing apologies and a retraction.

However, while Emerson clearly overstated the extent to which Muslim ghettoes had proliferated in major cities, his “crime” was exaggeration, not intentional misstatement.

The reality is not that far removed from Emerson’s description, and with the current influx of hundreds of thousands of Muslim “refugee-hadis,” Emerson’s statement will likely be accurate sooner than most would think.

Free travel and unfettered immigration policies have permitted those with ideologies diametrically opposed to that of a free society to ensconce themselves in our midst, increasingly shielded from criticism or account by grossly misguided devotees of a multicultural utopianism. Recent years have shown us the folly of these policies, as the mass importation of antithetical ideologies have convulsed European societies and taxed their welfare states into crisis. Sadly, we now see the same mindset taking hold here in the United States, making the same mistakes in pursuit of the same fantasy of kumbaya.

The behavior of these Muslim Brotherhood thugs on the streets of a premier American city like New York is unacceptable. However, the reaction on the part of the police (and presumably their superiors, who appear to have given them orders to stand down) is far more disturbing, as it reveals a dangerous attitude of appeasement that enables lawlessness and rewards thuggery.

When the law refuses to act, citizens inevitably fill the vacuum with action of their own – the very definition of civil breakdown. Yet what are citizens to do when their government abandons them to the predations of an interloping ideology?

The individuals involved in this incident need to be identified, arrested, prosecuted, and, if not American citizens, deported permanently after serving their sentences. Tolerance of other views is an essential element of a free society, but such tolerance doesn’t constitute a suicide pact, nor does it permit the use of violence.

We have no legal or moral obligation to tolerate the advocates of our destruction and enslavement, which is precisely what the Muslim Brotherhood intends to do.

I urge you to send this video to your local sheriff, police chief, and mayor, with a request for them to tell you what they would do should a similar circumstance arise in your city or town. Prevention is better than cure and, in the case of violent intimidation, essential to keeping the peace and bolstering the foundation of self-government.

Our future is on display for all to see. What is happening in Europe – violent rioting and invasion-level migration – is coming here next. It’s up to us to be prepared with the proper policies and personnel in place to respond appropriately. This includes those we elect to represent us.

Especially those who we elect to represent us.

The authors are the communications director and the executive director, respectively, of the Omaha-based Global Faith Institute. www.globalfaith.org