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Can't you just feel the excitement in that word? It makes your heart beat a little quicker. You can almost feel it in your throat, can't you? Your stomach sinks. You are reminded of that wounded and vulnerable hollowness you felt when you watched towers falling.
Please remember what followed that. Invasion and war. Another invasion and more war. Civil liberties being washed away unanimously in our Congress. Torture.
Two were shot in a federal building today. I haven't heard talk of invasion, war or changes in TSA protocol. People are waiting in line for 7 hours to fly to the US.
We hear retired military on teevee saying if every Muslim man isn't strip-searched a US plane will be downed in 30-100 days. We hear senators speak openly about yet another invasion of another country.
When we react to one criminal act differently than another, we evaluate it. We elevate it. When drug territory battles take lives in our cities, it isn't even reported on the news. Even when one of the weekly multiple-homicides comes out Everytown, America it receives little more than a nod.
When one mentally-ill kid tries to light an underwear bomb without the proper detonating device, the country buckles? We hear that word. Terror. It brings us to our knees. And, the appropriate response to terror, of course, is war. The very labeling it as terror nationalizes and codifies the act as more than 'crime'. Its message becomes political, the message becomes worthy of attention. The message becomes the story.
Is that what we want? Do we really want to become so distracted by the motives of an attempted mass-murderer that we care more about him than our way of life?
Here it is straight. If someone is willing to kill themselves to kill others, there is no way to stop them completely. Most will fail, most will get caught. But, some will succeed. No matter how many changes we make or liberties we restrict, it will never be 'attack-proof'.
When we respond to these criminal acts with war and talks of war, we expose our weakness. Like the commuters who packed the trains in India as soon as they re-opened after a massive bombing, we should continue about our days. When we react with war, we show how easily goaded we can be. We exclaim to the world: If you can hit us, you can entangle us. We elevate their importance and sacrifice our freedoms.
They aren't worth it. They simply aren't worth it.
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