Fine, then, side with the broken, lesser world, side with the countries that can’t pay their debts or keep their lights on or maintain even the semblance of civil society, side with the terrorists (you will always be said to side with the terrorists), side with, as the chief political instigator of our present moment put it, darkness against light—and don’t come crying to us when we crush you. Perhaps that is what this all comes to, in the end, some pathetic adherence to the idea that certain peoples simply need to be crushed.
