THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. Nothing quite like the fracturing of old commonplaces to make for interesting reading. Start with Victor Davis Hanson.

We are living in historic times, as all the landmarks of the past half-century are in the midst of passing away. The old left-wing critique is in shambles — as the United States is proving to be the most radical engine for world democratic change and liberalization of the age. A reactionary Old Europe, in concert with the ossified American leftist elite, unleashed everything within its ample cultural arsenal: novels, plays, and op-ed columns calling for the assassination of President Bush; propaganda documentaries reminiscent of the oeuvre of Pravda or Leni Riefenstahl; and transparent bias passed off as front-page news and lead-ins on the evening network news.

Germany and France threw away their historic special relationships with America, while billions in Eastern Europe, India, Russia, China, and Japan either approved of our efforts or at least kept silent. Who would have believed 60 years ago that the great critics of democracy in the Middle East would now be American novelists and European utopians, while Indians, Poles, and Japanese were supporting those who just wanted the chance to vote? Who would have thought that a young Marine from the suburbs of Topeka battling the Dark Ages in Fallujah — the real humanist — was doing more to aid the planet than all the billions of the U.N.?

Those on the left who are ignorant of history lectured the Bush administration that democracy has never come as a result of the threat of conflict or outright war — apparently the creation of a democratic United States, Germany, Japan, Italy, Israel, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan was proof of the power of mere talk. In contrast, the old realist Right warned that strongmen are our best bet to ensure stability — as if Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been loyal allies with content and stable pro-American citizenries. In truth, George Bush's radical efforts to cleanse the world of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, bring democracy to the heart of the Arab world, and isolate Yasser Arafat were the most risky and humane developments in the Middle East in a century — old-fashioned idealism backed with force in a postmodern age of abject cynicism and nihilism.

Quite literally, we are living in the strangest, most perilous, and unbelievable decade in modern memory.

Don't go off at half-cock, cautions Cicero at Winds of Change. I'm quoting what I view to be the key point; make sure you read the whole article and the linked pieces for proper context.

Indeed, Europe is playing with half a deck, and so is America. Even though elected, there is a danger that prolonged one-party domination of American politics makes for weak democratic governance. The Democratic party needs to reboot and find identification with the common cause of voters who seek no-nonsense policies when it comes to their defense. Republicans do not have all the answers.

Kagan and O'Hehir have identified the differences between the United States and Europe, yet each only has half the key to the West's survival. Neither side will endure the oncoming storm of terror-fascism on its own. Soft power is only possible with military might to back it up; a strong, overwhelming military is a prerequisite to freedom, but it needs a broader vision than can be provided by a single political party. Europeans with nothing but carrots and Americans with nothing but sticks is dysfunctional in the face of militant extremists bent on destroying them both---sticks, carrots and all.

The US and Europe have had a symbiotic relationship for a long time. It has been a complimentary relationship---not without differences or misunderstandings, but effective at preserving the peace and stability nonetheless. The biggest danger is the inability to identify threats from behind the peculiar refractions that each ideological lens creates. An America on a search-and-destroy anti-terror obsession might suffer from a myopia that might overlook, for example, the internal threats to freedom that an open-ended war against terror will produce. A Europe that is self-obsessed and blind to the particular rot in its own trumped-up post-modern utopian culture might overlook that there is a huge part of the world that seeks their destruction. Fear of cultural imperialism can be taken to extremes; Europeans must recognize that some cutures are uncompromising even if they aren't. If a rogue WMD event takes place anywhere in the West---Europe or America---then the West will be in the same boat. The 'New Cold War' would be over as Europe and America scramble together to ferret out further attacks.

It could be that Kagan and O'Hehir are describing what might be more accurately called a cold civil war, arising within every western nation that feels the stresses of national identity pushing against a progressive order, striving for peace with the world. Perhaps this phenomenon is more than transatlantic, but endemic to all nations that comprise the West.

Many of the world's more recent civil wars have been about religion or ethnicity.

Aye, and there's the rub. Questions and Observations states the basic problem somewhat bluntly. The post focuses on immigration, but the message quoted below illustrates the elephant in the room.

Cultures are not equal, nor is there any requirement that I must tolerate one simply because it exists and others choose to live within it. To believe that all cultures are equal is simply a fantasy. And its dangerous.

Those who perpetrate this fantasy do us a grave injustice. They insist we set aside one of our greatest tools as human beings - the ability to judge and choose. They insist we accept, carte blanche, any culture at face value simply because it exists, explaining that "different" doesn’t necessarily mean bad and that it is incumbent on us to accept the different ideas that others belive in and follow (except, apparently, Christianity, of which you’re allowed to be intolerant).

Well sometimes different does mean ’bad’. Sometimes different is unacceptable. And sometimes it makes sense to reject it.

The hate, such as the little snippet above portrays, is unacceptable and "bad". It should be rejected and the culture which teaches it should be rejected as well. Let’s be clear, that doesn’t mean the rejection of Islam as a whole, it means the rejection of the culture within Islam which lives, eats, breaths and sleeps death and destruction to "infidels."

It is one thing to seek common ground, to sample other peoples' cooking, to listen to all sorts of music. It is quite another to excuse bad behavior as simply "another culture's standards."

Interestingly, this Two Blowhards post provides a reality check for those who would view the European view of intercultural interactions as more sensitive.

FWIW, a Parisian friend tells me that the French have essentially drawn a line between the heavily-immigrant Parisian suburbs and downtown Paris. Giant ring roads encircle Paris, creating an informal boundary that's hard to cross over; and public transportation between downtown and the suburbs shuts down early in the evening. That way, downtown Parisians are able to sleep soundly, certain that most of the poor and the immigrants aren't nearby.

So where is the real gated community? And what resolution of the differences will emerge?