The Ostrich Defense [krakatoa]

I literally found out about the Orlando terrorist attack last night sometime after 5 pm Eastern.

It was incredible, really, to take the weekend off from the internet and regain some sense of insularity from the 24/7 news cycle, then tune back in and find something so enormous has happened.

One could say I was hiding my head in the sand, and to that, I'd say it is a big world, with billions of people each with their own agenda. Some of us will do ill with their agenda. Some of us will be immersed in the world's events 24/7. And some of us will build their daughter an outdoor playhouse from scratch. I think I chose pretty wisely.

I won't say it gives me any sort of special insight. Because my take on Orlando, like most people living in the world as it is rather than as we would wish it, is not dependent on the moment-by-moment speculation of the news agencies when information simply can't yet be nailed down. Nor is my take colored by those demagogues who never let a crisis go to waste.

My take is simple: Bad people and crazy people and sometimes even good people do bad things, and smart people do their very best to mitigate against those bad things people do.

In my case, it means I refuse to submit to the will of those who would demand from me blind obedience to their idealized conception of the world, whatever their ideology may be.

Obama, and the Washington Post, and anyone else who chooses to plug their ears and pretend away the reality that just took 50 lives are quite literally gambling with other people's lives on either blind faith in the secular perfectibility of humanity, or on selfish moral preening to signify their superiority to those who voice and act on legitimate fear of those who have indicated in word & action the desire to kill us all.

If a gun is ever quite literally pointed at their head, I would bet not one of the thoughts arising from the sudden intrusion of reality will include the phrase "this is just as bad as not getting a cake."

The left and all its mouthpieces utter perfectly ridiculous pablum like "If we show fear, they win."

It occurs to me, as I am sure it does to the person doing bad things, that the unarmed target is going to lose most encounters with an armed aggressor whether that target shows fear or not.

Deciding to not be afraid isn't remotely the answer to the problem, and transferring that fear to a fetishized other, be that a piece of crafted metal or a group of people who don't vote like you just doubles down on an already deadly course.

I'm reminded of a line from, of all things, The Crow. Vengeance is about to be extracted from T-bird, and at the end the identity of his killer becomes clear.

I knew I knew you, I knew I knew you. But you ain't you. You can't be you. We put you through the window. There ain't no coming back. This is the really real world, there ain't no coming back.

The left has put Islam not through the window, but through Alice's looking glass. Reality for the modern leftist must be turned upside-down and inside-out in order to maintain focus on their chosen enemy: Republicans; Conservatives; and anyone else who disagrees with them ideologically and is therefore, perversely, labeled an oppressor.

In Orlando the looking glass shattered, and for all these latest victims of a religion bent on world domination, there ain't no coming back.

This is the really-real world.

posted by Open Blogger at 01:00 PM

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