Pipes is describing a fantasy world inhabited by rightists of a certain stripe who are best described as creme-puffs masquerading as hard-rolls. In that world only they are alert to huge malevolencies only they are hard enough to oppose properly, and their opponents are squishy things in sandals who wear their hair like women do, so they look like girls from behind, which confuses the poor dears horribly. It takes a core of fundamental fear, great enough to overpower reason, to live in such a mental world.

Political violence pushed to the point of suicidal murder, whether by direct self-immolation or by commital in circumstances practically guaranteeing arrest, requires one of two things: either careful grooming over time by an authority figure in circumstances of some social isolation, or a degree of mental disturbance for which a received ideology provides a narrative that gives the sufferer a sense of being not maladjusted but exalted, and makes the condition bearable and even welcome. The first sort requires a good deal of organization, and is potentially very dangerous; the second gives rise to 'lone wolves' of varying degrees of competence, but mostly not particularly adept at the work.

A variety of ideologies have served the turn for the latter group. Nineteenth century Anarchism, with its 'propaganda of the deed', depended almost wholly on such types for its more spectacuar outrages in Western Europe, though in Russia, there was real organization and planning behind most incidents. 'White Power' types, and anti-abortion killers, generally arise in the 'lone wolf' style nowadays, though there are loose networks encouraging and sheltering those with the potential. Militant Islam certainly provides a narrative very suitable for this form of escape from mental disturbance, that a number of disturbed individuals latch onto. But such instances are distinct from organized attacks carried out by networks and criminal conspiracy, and in many such instances, were that particular narrative frame-work absent, some other readily available one would be found to serve the turn, because the impulsion to the act comes from within the personality, not from any external source.

The problem with policing such persons is that for every one who actually does cook off into serious violence, there are thousands who show some of the incipient signs. All who display this potential in some degree cannot, as a practical matter, be swept up off the street, whether for incarceration or treatment, it is not possible even to keep close watch on them all. Police effort is, properly, directed mostly at detecting the pug-marks of organized efforts, which, if their plans come to fruition, can do serious harm.