I’m tired of how everytime a large-scale disaster takes place, the only tangible change is a temporary state of paranoia, and nothing really is done to prevent the situation from happening again.
Example: Columbine High School shootings. For a few months, there was a big deal about school violence. I remember suddenly doing lockdown drills and a lot of workshops on not alienating kids.
Point of failure: Things went back to normal. I haven’t done a lockdown drill since fifth grade. And the Virginia Tech murderer directly referred to the actions of Harris and Klebold.
Example: 9/11. Remember the terrible initial fear we all felt? All of a sudden, nobody wanted to travel or go to a public place. A bunch of supposed fixes went into effect: a color-coded terrorist threat paranoia advisory system, the Transportation Security Administration, et cetera.
Point of failure: We used 9/11 for other stuff, and didn’t bother with actual protections. Somehow, in five years, we went from an attack from Muslim radicals in Afghanistan to a failed war on a country that had no connection to the attacks. It took Congress until 2007 to act on all of the 9/11 Commission’s reccommendations. I was at the airport last week, and heard over the intercom, “THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY HAS RAISED THE THREAT ADVISORY LEVEL TO ORANGE. PLEASE REPORT ANY SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY.” But nonetheless, I had hastily packed and didn’t remember that there was an aerosol in my backpack. Security at DIA didn’t care, they let me through. I didn’t even know it was in my backpack until Phoenix security found it on my return flight. When they searched my bag and found the aerosol, they didn’t even bother to check the rest of the compartments of my bag. I could have walked on with materials to blow up a plane on either flight. But the important thing was that the advisory level was “Orange,” whatever the heck that means. Unfortunately, our current leadership is more worried about keeping us as scared as possible to push their unrelated agendas, instead of actually keeping us safe. If that isn’t terrorism, I don’t know what is. Don’t believe me? Believe Merriam-Webster:
ter·ror·ism
Pronunciation: 'ter-&r-"i-z&m
Function: noun
: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
Example: Virginia Tech Massacre. The murderer turned out to be a deranged loner, just like the Columbine shooters. Campuses nationwide are reacting to the situation, and most are being caught with their pants down in terms of handling such a problem. At CSU, there is supposedly a system in place, which is kept secret for security purposes. But what we do know is that RA’s and building proctors have received no training or instructions of how to act in such an event. And even after the Virginia Tech incident, campus officials are saying that instead of revising their current procedures, the best thing for people to do is call 911 and let them handle it.
Point of failure: This, too, will be forgotten. Everyone is paranoid and articles are being published in the school paper this week, but we’ll all forget about this once the NBA playoffs heat up. At 4:30 AM yesterday, some lunatic got on the roof of Edwards Hall and tried to commit suicide. CSU Police evacuated about 100 students from the dorm, and dealt with the situation, but no e-mail was sent about the situation until 9:30 AM, well after it was over. Had it not been for VT, no e-mail at all would have been sent.
Example: The holocaust. Some consider it to be the most horrific event in modern history, and much time is spent trying to make sure that it happens “never again.”
Point of failure: It’s happening again. As many as 450,000 have died in the Darfur conflict, but what gets news attention? The fight over a dead porn star’s child. What gets military attention? A troop surge for a war whose death toll has exceeded the deaths under the dictator it saught to dethrone.
All of these events are terrible, and since man is fallible, they will happen again. No form of government, economy, or religion will ever solve this problem. Only when Christ reigns over this world again will we be free from such tragedies. (If you’re confused as to how I can say religion will never solve the problem, but Christ will, here is what I mean: religion is man’s acts of spirituality. Manly manifestations of this will always be imperfect- every church has its faults. We can only trust someone who is not subject to our own shortcomings will be able to effectively rid us of our own imperfections.)
So these problems are gonna be around ’till Jesus returns. Does that mean that we shouldn’t try to fix these problems? No – that would accept and endorse evildoing. But just getting scared about it doesn’t fix the problem. Doing something about it does.