[CityJournal] No more hand-wringing by journalists, as they stand mere yards from the bodies of the dead, about the possible "backlash" against Moslems (which never really materializes). No more declarations by U.S. officials that the mere mention of Islam in connection with Islamic terrorism is "dangerous" and "counterproductive" because it "alienates" the Moslem allies and Moslem communities whose help we need in fighting this problem that we dare not properly name. No more respectful TV interviews with representatives of "Moslem civil-rights organizations" that have been proven over and over again to be fronts for terrorism.
No more outrageous lies by government and media that, almost fifteen years after 9/11, keep so many Americans so outrageously in the dark about the world in which we live now. No more of the despicable day-to-day efforts by the same actors to keep those Americans who do get it in line, to instill in them an unholy fear that, if they dare to address the problem honestly, they’ll be thrust forever out into the dark--beyond the realm of decent society, unacceptable, unemployable, unfriendable. No more societal tyranny by those who (because they’re cowardly, or feel powerless, or have no sense of responsibility to preserve the precious gift of freedom that their own forebears fought and died for and have bequeathed them, or are, inconceivably, unconcerned about the world their own children and grandchildren will inhabit) treat as enemies not those who seek to destroy them but those who dare to speak the truth about it.
No more ignorance. A couple of weeks ago, Adam Carolla recorded his podcast--one of the most popular on the Internet--before an Amsterdam audience. Carolla, an Angeleno, asked locals about life in the Netherlands. They painted a thoroughly rosy picture. He asked about religion. They depicted a near-utopian secular country free of reactionary faith. Poof! Down the memory hole went Pim Fortuyn, Theo Van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders. And Carolla didn’t challenge any of it. Then, just the other day, in an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast (which is even bigger than Carolla’s), gay conservative Milo Yiannopoulos served up some basic facts that everybody in the U.S. would know by now if the mainstream media were doing its job--facts about the levels of Moslem rape in Sweden, about the scale of antigay animus in Moslem communities, and about the systematic efforts by European governments to obscure these and other ticklish matters. Rogan, who is no fool, and who has interviewed hundreds of people in an effort to educate himself about the world, was shocked by all of it. ("Wow! Wow! Wow!")
In the years after 9/11, major acts of Islamic terrorism in the West seemed to come along every year or so, leaving plenty of time in between to go back to pretending that everything was fine and to resume mouthing benign platitudes. Now they’re happening so often, one right on top of the other, that we can hardly keep track of them. The only upside is that it’s getting harder and harder to maintain that pretense.
The time for shock is over. The time for heaping up flowers and candles and stuffed animals at the sites of atrocities is over. The lies and ignorance and cravenness must end, and the simple facts must be faced. The free, civilized West has, for years now, been the target of a war of conquest--a war waged in many forms (of which terrorism is only one) by adherents of a religion that preaches submission, intolerance, and brutality, and our leaders and media, with few exceptions, continue to play a game whose fatuity, fecklessness, and pusillanimity have become increasingly clear. After Nice, no more. 
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