Chris Navin

Pretty tough to watch those videos.

If one’s political and social institutions, with the authority they wield, aren’t able to protect some of the most innocent they serve (pre-teen and teen girls at a pop concert), then such a basic, underlying truth, I suspect, will manifest itself in other ways.

Some people may not change their thinking much at all, while others will curtail their own behavior to some degree (maybe I won’t go out tonight). Others still will probably start thinking about bigger picture issues differently. Maybe security becomes a hot button issue next election, or maybe alternative personal and political arrangements are re-examined, seriously and unseriously. Respect and trust for the authorities currently on watch, and authority more generally, must probably ebb away.

This blog has been watching the terrorism threat enough, for long enough, to not be very surprised at the Manchester attack (even the savagery and the targets), but is still shocked and saddened nonetheless at the loss of life and innocence.

These issues are hard to think about and harder to confront, but the more honestly they are dealt with now, the better the likely outcomes. A lot of people in authority are incentivized otherwise.

Also On This Site: What map are you using to understand this conflict: From The American Interest Online: Francis Fukuyama On Samuel Huntington

Ayan Hirsi Ali at the New Criterion: ‘In Defense Of Dissidence:’

‘In many ways I think it’s comical that I’m being recognized for saying men and women should be equal before the law. That’s what I’m being recognized for, pretty much. That’s what it amounts to. And that idea that men and women are equal before the law is blasphemic to Islamic law.’

As posted: Here’s a debate from Intelligence Squared with Ayan Hirsi Ali on one side, arguing that Islam is the problem (the same absolutism in Islam that will not tolerate questioning of its tenets, its many violent passages, and its unreformed worldview which has a prescription for pretty much all aspects of the culture and public square). A member of the opposing side suggests that Muslim alienation in British life, combined with a European influenced fascist inspired-Islamism is the problem, not Islam itself (yes, it’s colonialist Europe’s fault).