In a viral video from Dundee, Scotland, three schoolgirls stand on a hilltop. One clutches a knife and a hatchet, brandishing them toward an advancing man. Another shields a third girl in a pink sweatshirt, her voice breaking as she cries: “Don’t touch my sister, she’s twelve!”
It is a moment that distills civilizational decline. In that scream lies the sound of failure — the burden of defense shifted from the strong to the small, from institutions to children. Collapse rarely announces itself with flames and rubble; more often, it creeps in through abdication.
The state’s first response was not to confront the predator, but to charge the girl for holding a weapon to defend herself and her sister.
Credit: @Basil_TGMD/X.com. UK Child Defends Self.
This is the inversion of justice that defines too much of Western life today: The fear of offending a racial and religious minority outweighs the fear of harming innocent civilians, including and especially young girls and women. “Tolerance” is stretched to excuse the intolerable, and girls are left to bear the costs of the public class’s cowardice. The impulse to confront evil has been hollowed out, replaced by the reflex to punish those who resist it or even name it.
The forthcoming “Women and the West” report, which I authored for Independent Women, reckons with this reality. It documents how Western societies practice what scholars call “suicidal empathy” — the refusal to confront illiberal practices, even when they imperil women. It is why British authorities ignored grooming gangs that preyed on thousands of girls, because the men were Pakistani Muslims and the girls were largely white. It is why Sweden, once among the safest nations on earth, now faces epidemic levels of sexual violence. Why a Dundee schoolgirl is treated as a criminal while her desperate cry — “She’s twelve!” — is brushed aside.
But the tragedy extends beyond abandoned girls. It is also about men stripped of their civilizational role as protectors. Where were the men in Dundee? Where were the men in Rottingham and in the other cities across the UK while their daughters were being raped? We know the legal system bears the brunt of the blame: Those who act are punished. In the UK, even those who speak out about what happens risk jail.
America knows this story too: Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran, intervened on a New York subway to restrain a violent man threatening passengers. For protecting strangers, he was not honored but indicted. The message on both sides of the Atlantic is too often: step forward, risk prison; stay silent, stay safe. But safety purchased by silence comes at the cost of culture itself. A society that criminalizes protectors breeds passive men and terrified women. Ultimately Americans rallied around Daniel Penny. Our commitment to free speech and to the sacred concept of the right to self-defense trumped our tendency for suicidal empathy. Will the UK rally around this brave girl in Scotland?
The fate of women has always been the measure of a civilization’s strength. Where law is upheld and courage honored, women thrive. Where cowardice reigns and defenders are vilified, women and girls suffer first and most. From Kabul to Cologne to Dundee, the pattern holds.
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True liberalism never meant limitless tolerance. It meant ordered liberty: borders that protect sovereignty, cultures bound by shared norms, and institutions willing to enforce justice without apology. Instead, in the name of inclusivity, we deny reality, manipulate statistics, silence dissent, and prosecute children while excusing the predators who terrify them.
A frightened girl’s cry — “She’s twelve!” — is not just a viral clip. It is a warning. We have reached a point where the natural defenders of civilization — its men — are absent or penalized, and where its most vulnerable — its girls — are forced to take up arms in their stead.
Strength sustains freedom. Freedom safeguards women. If the West cannot recover the will to defend its daughters and honor its sons who rise to protect, then our undoing will not come by invasion from without but surrender from within.
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Meaghan Mobbs, PhD, is the Director of the Center for American Safety and Security at Independent Women. She is the President of the R.T. Weatherman Foundation, a private operating foundation, providing humanitarian support in Ukraine. She is a presidential appointee to the Board of Visitors at the United States Military Academy at West Point and a gubernatorial appointee to Board of Visitors at the Virginia Military Academy.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
