At a time when the liberal left is consumed with placating the sensibilities of minorities and creating “safe places” on campus to insure that words will never harm them, I wonder if our president and other pundits are considering the sensibilities of 9/11 and Boston Marathon survivors and the grieving families of those who were murdered. How devastating it must be to have lived through those domestic Jihadist attacks, suffered permanent physical and mental impairment and then have to listen to our president proclaim that there is no need to fear the influx of 10,000 Muslim immigrants, or to read the Times’ daily vilification of people with the opposite point of view.
At the same time that the newspaper reports the bombing of the Mali hotel due to security lapses, its columnists excoriate those who question the efficacy of our national security to safeguard us from terrorist interlopers. Fear is the appropriate reaction for people who have experienced firsthand or suffered the consequences second-hand of the stated aims of Islamic Jihad. Too many of us have felt sick just seeing the images of executioners lopping off the heads of innocent people, raping and kidnapping scores of women and militarizing African children – forcing them to do unspeakable things including cannibalism. It’s impossible to pretend after this year’s double catastrophe in Paris that we can walk the streets of NYC, a prime stated target for repeat attack, completely confident that our excellent police and anti-terror squads can be omniscient and omnipotent. It just isn’t feasible in an open society where we don’t have security screening in our public museums, city transportation hubs, multiplex theaters or most of the myriad places where people congregate. A day after the Paris attack, I saw a New Yorker with a backpack large enough for a weeklong camping trip enter a movie theater, sit down and casually place that baggage on the floor beside her.
