Liberalism: making the world a more dangerous place?

The news of the past week was, of course, the Paris terror attacks. I was interested to see what the reaction would be from the general public here in Australia. Many do seem to recognise that we now live in a different world, one which is no longer as safe as it once was. A less attractive world.

You might think that the next step would be for people thinking this way to reconsider the policies causing this decline. The smaller the Muslim population in the West, the easier it is for security services to keep on top of those planning terror attacks. So if you want a safer and more secure society it makes sense to limit Muslim immigration into the West.

But most people have not taken this next logical step. Why? I think perhaps it's because if you have lived in a liberal culture for long enough you are likely to have developed a "liberal reflex" - by which I mean an internalised sense of what you can or can't think (or feel). And, at the moment, the reflex tells people that to cast any kind of insensitivity onto a migrant, including a Muslim migrant, is a worse thing than to live under the ongoing threat of terror attacks.

It is weak-minded, when what is needed is a resolute commitment to the security of the Western populations.