There's a fairly key difference in the levels of opposition: you can easily find Muslims criticizing every extremist attack, rejecting the theology used to justify them, setting up education programs to reduce future recruitment, and working with law enforcement.
I think the strongest form of the bad apple argument comes not from the presence of a problem but rather the strength of counter-efforts.
I probably wasn't clear. I'm not either. What I was alluding to was how common we hear a corruption of the phrase as a defense. "Just a few bad apples." Somehow the cautionary part of the cliche is disappeared.
I think the strongest form of the bad apple argument comes not from the presence of a problem but rather the strength of counter-efforts.