GIVING UP ON THE DUTCH DREAM? “There’s a feeling of injustice that if you do things right, if you work hard and pay your taxes, you’re punished, and those who don’t are rewarded.”

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson:

Only now are Europeans discovering the disturbing nature of radical Islamic extremism, which thrives not on real grievance but on perceived hurts — and the appeasement of its purported oppressors. How odd that tens of millions of Muslims flocked to Europe for its material consumption, superior standard of living, and freedom and tolerance — and then chose not merely to remain in enclaves but to romanticize all the old pathologies that they had fled from in the first place. It is almost as if the killers in Amsterdam said, “I want your cell phones, unfettered Internet access, and free-spirited girls, but hate the very system that alone can create them all. So please let me stay here to destroy what I want.”

Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brian Dunn doesn’t think we’ll like the new version of Europe, once the culture of passivity departs, either. He’s probably right. Indeed, what worries me most about Europe’s passivity now is that it’s likely to lead to overreaction, eventually. I’m hoping, however, that the “new Europe” will serve as a moderating force against the trends that Dunn warns against.