“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore
the consequences of ignoring reality.”
~Ayn Rand
I was watching the most recent episode of The Walking Dead last night, in which one of the characters -- who had, until this point, been shielded from the worst of the zombie apocalypse, living in a well-protected enclave where they still had electricity and running water and medicine and where their most pressing concern was the fact that they had to ration chocolate -- came face-to-face with the realities of the current world, when evil men invaded their utopia and ruthlessly attacked these peaceable people who had done nothing to provoke this violent group.
Her friend was left for dead, and then became a zombie, which she had to kill. The shocked townspeople stared at her in disbelief, that she could so calmly and coldly kill her friend-turned-zombie (before her dead former friend killed her). The woman turned to her neighbors and said:
"I used to not want to see the way things are. It’s not that I couldn’t. It’s that I didn’t want to. But this is what life looks like now. We have to see it. We have to fight it. If we don’t fight, we die."
It made me think of the liberal West... ignoring the growing terror of the Islamic Middle East, because we are safe in our enclaves, where our most pressing issue is getting the government to pay for free stuff and where we delusionally believe we have a "right" to "safe spaces" where no opposing viewpoints can enter our precious, fragile consciousness.
On Twitter, I saw several people referring to the terrorist attack on Paris as a “criminal act” -- as though it was merely a random act of violence. I saw another group calling the dead “victims of gun violence.” No, people. No. We can’t end this by downplaying it. When I called out one Twitter user for calling the terrorists a criminal group, he replied with: “I prefer peace over war.”
What the heck? Who doesn’t prefer peace over war -- except for terrorists? Do people really think they can end terrorism simply by calling it something else?
Believe me, I want peace. I’m a mom with one son on active duty in the Army, and another son contemplating the same. I don’t want war, The thought of war terrifies me. But we have to stop refusing to see the truth. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, war is being waged against us.
We have to see it. We have to fight it. If we don't fight it, we die.
