By now, you've probably all seen the video of a man being beheaded on a Belfast street. You probably found it nauseating and shocking. I didn't. Here's why.
Twenty years ago, so-called gore videos were circulated of mass ISIS beheadings, antisemites beheading Daniel Pearl, judicial amputations in the Islamic world. They were shocking then, but everyone who saw them understood what caused it: The ideology, the religion, its origin, and they knew they didn't want that in their own backyard.
Over the last 20 years however, social media platforms have tried to protect us from such reality, the way television would protect kids at 6 p.m. from videos of bus bombings.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and if it weren't for X, nobody would have seen that video and would instead have to rely on sanitised mainstream reporting about a "stabbing" incident that makes a clear threat against Western civilisation look like a garden variety mugging.
I for one, do not want to worry about having my head hacked off or being blown up or being shot to death in a first world country and yet I've watched as this has happened, including to people I know personally.
Meanwhile we have so-called leaders wishing that we don't believe our own eyes, as they turn their own eyes away from doing what's necessary.