Courage, bravery and defiance. Those are the words being used to describe another Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
We have reached the sad state of affairs in which the media congratulates the citizenry for their "courage" in going to a concert or a nightclub. The highest possible human virtue is defined as "not giving in to fear".
Living in denial of Islamic terrorism means giving in to fear. Taking it on is giving in to fear. It's the old Orwellian formula so often used by Obama in which cowardice is courage and inaction is courageous restraint.
It is a very low bar that in formerly free nations that confronted Hitler and Stalin, going out is now an act of courage. It is a testament to how thoroughly Islamic terrorism has paralyzed its Western host societies. Going shopping after 9/11 or to a concert after Bataclan or the Manchester Arena bombing are not acts of courage. They're attempts to restore normalcy.
The political elites of the West desperately seek to restore a normalcy that is out of reach after every single attack. That normalcy is also known as denial. There's no courage in denial. There was no courage in the citizens of Paris pretending that the Nazi occupation did not exist. There was courage in Churchill's call to resist Nazism.
There was courage in the citizens of London going about their routines under the shadow of the Luftwaffe because they were part of a society actively resisting the Nazis. There is no virtue in doing the same while letting the Islamofascists occupy London and Manchester.
If your society is damaged enough that going out to a concert becomes an act of courage, you might as well be living in Pakistan or Iran. If the West doesn't want to end its days courageously listening to black market music or sneaking drinks at home, it might be time to show true courage by defeating the Islamofascist hordes streaming every day from the burgeoning emirates and caliphates into the cities of civilization.