Refuse Terror
The Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) put a fence around the Olympic Flame, a fence that kept people out and away from it even as it called them together to celebrate the Olympics here in Vancouver.
This is just plain not right! It is a reaction to terrorism that is itself simply giving in to the terrorists (or anarchists or vandals or whatever you call them.)
I'm about to get on a small plane to travel up the BC coast to a small town for the weekend. I'll likely have to pack my pocket knife in my checked luggage (on a float plane?) and put up with the indignities of a body search and such - all in the name of counter-terrorism.
Hey guys, the terrorists have won! They have us doing things that we didn't do before, in fear for our lives. They have caused our governments and those of other countries to trample on our privacy and make our lives miserable.
Instead, they should be guarding our rights to privacy and spending all those millions of dollars, now spent on invasive technologies, on actually finding the criminals - because that's what they are, criminals - and prosecuting them to the limits of the law. And if the law is not harsh enough, then they should be changing the law, not to trample our individual and generally law-abiding lives, but to ensure that any who are caught in terrorist acts are cast out from our civilization and forbidden from ever becoming a part of it again.
Teach us how to spot the Trojans in our midst. Teach us, the citizens of this country, how to defend ourselves in an airplane when we are confronted by someone trying to do something damaging. We are willing. Those on Flight 93 on 911 knew what they had to do and they did it. Those on Flight 253 dealt with the so-called "underwear" bomber when they had to.
People have shown the ability, if not the actual willingness, to die to protect others. Give us all the ability to make such martyrs few and as useful as possible. Give us training. Give us at least the minimal ability to use our pocket knives, or our knitting needles, or our laptops or whatever we decide to carry to our destinations.
Lead Us - by proactively dealing with the problem instead of knee-jerk reacting by making us all out to be criminals and destroying our dignity. Provide us with the tools and training to be as effective as we can be in searching out or recognizing those who would try to terrorize us.
Follow Us - by recognizing that we are not willingly participating in your (government) reaction to terrorism - you need not react in this way.
or at least Get the Hell Out of the Way - so we may do what is necessary when the time comes. We will not fail you or our fellow countrymen or the world.
Give us back our dignity. Give us back our little pleasures. Get your reactive insanity out of our face. Let us get on with our lives with as much pleasure and as little intrusion as you can.
richard
ps. After I wrote the above I went looking to see if anyone on Facebook has similar feelings - and put the words "free the Olympic flame" into the search engine. It came up with this freshly created group - please join us. There are two now - make this grow quickly.
pps. VANOC seems to understand, at least a bit. They have put the flame in a "secure" zone so "had to have a fence" (they could have put it somewhere outside such a zone) but now they have replaced the fence with a plexiglass wall - much better! Thanks!
The rest of the point still stands - the size and placement of the "secure zones" has every bit as much to do with giving in to the terrorists. Yes, not having them, or making them smaller and less intrusive, would have likely meant some increased potential for violence but somewhere the balance away from being "terrorized" must tilt back to freedom. richard
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