Morally Lazy

From a comment at LGF, an excerpt from Midge Decter's essay in Terrorism: How the West Can Win

"The theory of grievances is not a misguided effort to explain or understand terrorism. Rather, it is intended to deny the application of the normal moral code to the terrorist. Driven to murder by his inability to lawfully achieve his ends in an indifferent world, he is to be beyond the bounds of ordinary moral responsibility and judgement."

"The day that no one dares or cares to name these people for what they are, accomplices in murder, is the day the democracies will truly have something to fear from terrorism. Historians looking back on us from that dark world . . . will not say, `They were too good, and innocent, and freedom-loving to protect themselves.' They will say, `They were too morally lazy to do whatever was necessary to keep their blessings alive for the rest of us.'"

If we get out of this without a nuclear strike, it will be looked on by future generations as at best "a close-run thing."

We may yet however be too lazy to survive.