The liberal West needs its padded cell

Commentary by Wretchard of Belmont Club:

Personally I have nothing against Muslims, which is not the same as expressing an acquiescence to extremist Islamism. It's the weakness of the West that has made the simple problem of facing up to thugs into a world crisis. The asking price for making the world safe for the psychotic West is elminating all projecting surfaces -- such as the Islamic World -- which are threats to a society living in its dreams.

The liberal West needs its padded cell; needs a world in which it cannot come to hurt, for it has lost the natural societal defenses which even primitive tribes have. It needs someone to make the threats all go away and sometimes I think the liberal world secretly hopes GWB would nuke the Islamic world, which would give them safety without guilt. An avian flu, a GWB nuke, an act of a God they don't believe in -- anything so that the music will always play.

But history, if we prefer the term to God, is not always so obliging. It may even be just. The appeasers will have to pay full price, just like it did the last time. The cup will not pass away.