Five years ago, I thought America was invulnerable, and -- to be honest -- a bit boring. I saw terrorism as something that happened to other people, on the other side of the world. All politicians seemed alike to me. I could not have cared less who held what office.

Five years ago, the biggest problem in my world was a recent breakup. I was cynical, hardened and detached; above it all. I could not imagine that ordinary people were capable of courage and self-sacrifice. I believed that there were no more heroes. If I uttered the word "evil," it referred to something in a game, movie or book.

Five years ago, I had not cast a vote for anyone since Ronald Reagan. In fact, I stopped paying any attention to politics at all after Clinton took office. It seemed that America had worsened considerably since my youth. I was certain it would decline still more during my lifetime. America's slide into nanny-state socialism and enervation seemed inevitable, if vaguely lamentable. America was one huge bureaucracy, in which no single person could make a difference.

Five years ago, I hadn't watched the news nor read a newspaper in more than half a decade. That bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993 was a stand-alone crime, not part of something larger. Osama bin Laden was not a name with which I was very familiar. Saddam Hussein spit in America's face, but who didn't? Even the election controversy the previous year had made no impression on me. If anything, it deepened my apathy.

Five years ago, I cared for little outside my own circle of friends and family. Caring was for fools and patriotism mostly nostalgic in nature. I thought that things would continue as they always had. I was unaware of the existence of our enemies or their plans, and blissfully so.

All of that changed in a white-hot second on the morning of 9/11. Like so many other Americans, I was ripped from my comfortable womb and delivered against my will into a world where complete strangers hate me and would happily sacrifice their lives to kill me. Should I have mourned the loss of my ignorance? That was the path taken by Liberals, who immediately began blaming the government for their unwanted emergence into the real world. But the government did not create terrorist groups or perpetrate the attacks (wacko conspiracy theories and Blame America First nuts aside). Some place the blame entirely on Osama bin Laden... but this is not a comic-book world, in which one supervillain is the focus of all that is evil. Bin Laden is no more the entirety of terrorism than John Gotti was the whole of organised crime. Those things existed long before the momentary focus, and will likely survive them. Acceptance of either -- refusal to fight them -- is not an option. Should we disband our police forces because people still commit crimes?

The enemy is not one man. It's not even one group of terrorists. The enemy is all those who would use terrorism to intimidate free people into accepting a worldwide Caliphate ruled by Shari'a law. It's those who threaten to sow death and destruction at random among the innocent unless we accede to their demands. It's those governments who finance, train, support, supply and share intelligence with terrorist groups. It's also those who believe we should give the terrorists what they want, lest we anger them. They're already trying to kill or enslave us -- who cares if they're angry when they do it?

Those on the Left like to claim that we were a united country after 9/11, until Bush ruined it all by removing the terror enabler Saddam Hussein from power. In fact, the first "anti-war" rally was held just days after 9/11 in New York City, sponsored by ANSWER -- funded in part by Saddam Hussein's money. Meanwhile, President Bush stated, "Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." He promised us that "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

The ideological battle lines were drawn, here in America. Who would have thought that a mere five years later, the far Left would have grown to dominate the Democrats, to the point where the man who stood as a vice-Presidential nominee the year before 9/11 would be thrown out of the party for being too hawkish? Liberals complain about living in fear (by which is meant reasonable caution, like looking both ways before crossing the street). They actually prefer living in ignorance. But we can't return to the cocoon in which we lived prior to 9/11, nor should we.

Sometimes it seems that America might be on the verge of losing this war -- not to attacks by the enemy without, but by surrender to the enemy within. I don't think that will happen, in the end. But, as we survey the political landscape five years after 9/11, the dark cloud of defeatism looms always on the horizon.