What “sense of safety”?
While in the car yesterday I was listening to some Boston-based talk shows, and I heard some people going on and on about their shock at what happened at the marathon, and how it destroyed the sense of safety they had prior to the blast.
I have a question for them: where were you on a certain sunny day in September, 2001?
If a person didn’t see that as a watershed event, and feel that our sense of safety—although necessary in order to go about our daily lives—was severely compromised that day (and even earlier, if we’d been paying attention), then I wonder about that person’s ability to perceive events.
Of course, in a larger sense, we all should retain our sense of safety even after both 9/11 and the Boston blast. Why? Because, statistically speaking, our chances of being killed or injured in this way remain vanishingly small.
Nevertheless, in recent decades those chances have increased, and our perception of their frequency and likelihood of occurrence certainly has. In the words of the cliché, “that’s what the terrorists want.” And that’s what they tend to get.
I was thinking last night about what the turning points were in my perception about safety from terrorism. Certainly 9/11, which seemed especially up close and personal because of my connection to so many of the places involved. But even before that I can remember incidents that made a deep impression on me and brought home the fact that terrorism can strike anywhere, any time.
The massacre of the Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics was one. I’m neither Israeli nor an athlete, but the peacefulness of the venue and its sporting nature multiplied the shock of the attack and was a precursor to yesterday’s blast. Another incident—one about which some of you may be unaware—was this especially horrific attack that occurred in 1972, the same year as Munich.
I think people naively and protectively insulate themselves from these things by emphasizing certain unique characteristics of each attack. “Oh, that one happened in Israel.” “Oh, that one targeted athletes”—or the military, or capitalists in the WTC, or whatever it is that we ourselves are not.
But nearly everyone can relate to standing in a crowd and watching a sporting event, and that increases the shock value of a terrorist attack that all of us should have seen coming. The only question was where and when. “Who” remains to be seen as well, although if we play the numbers, we can guess the most likely perpetrators.
I’ve often wondered since 9-11 why the terrorists did not hit soft targets like ball games, movies, malls or streets. The explanation usually given was that AQ wanted spectacular attacks which took time to plan. Who knows?
During the IRA troubles I was a frequent visitor to Britain. We were told to stay away from crowds. Terrorism was always a thought.
Agreed that there’s been no “sense of safety” since 9-11. For years after the 9-11 attacks those of in the DC area were informed of elevated security alerts prior to every holiday and major event (e.g. July 4th celebration on the mall). There were also the anthrax and sniper attacks ensuring that we couldn’t shrug off each new alert.
I think what they may have been getting at was that we now have to prepare ourselves for the kind or random, civilian-heavy place attacks that they have in Israel vs. the kind of high profile, political attacks – such as the twin towers, embassies, and the Pentagon – that AQ has pulled off in the past.
Sense of safety is a woman thing
most men know there is no such thing as safe
ever…
there is just “Safer than”
and feminists have made sure that women never feel safe anywhere!!!! as that turns them to vote their paranoia.
safe is an illusion that exists more easily in an inner world
and if your stupid and dont think…
by the way, i have noticed this behavior is wacked out crazy in women… it makes no sense… as a group… (individual mileage may vary)
ok… they are afraid their kids are not going to turn out well, then they lave them with strangers
IF you want to sell to women, all you ahve to do is claim that X makes them younger, increases the number of men they have to turn down, makes them safer…
then you can control them by controlling their fears
and you get to do that, by making a tradition of bombarding them with stuff that they cant take (which studies now show, thye cant take). they either respond by liking news that dont report news… or they respond by voting for anything couched in terms of safety or better outcomes in the future (which si fear of the future)
just keep giving them emotive anecdotal victim stories
they will be afraid. and they will give up all their freedom to feel safe…
so the more society becomes matriarchal, the less safe it is
the more they give up their freedom to the state to fix it
the state wont fix it, as getting power this way, is a hell of a lot easier than getting it from the guys, as they are not afraid do die to protect it.
and anyone afraid, is not going to win society, or make it better
they may seize it from their mates, but the others who are the mates of other women, will seize it from them. so this is just a temporary transfer from strong, to weak to strong again.
and driven like a fear ful unsafe herd trying to flee and throwing themselves irrationally over a cliff!!!
emotionally satisfying
however, in terms of outcome, absymall
“Yeah, I remember. The Red Army gang et al. I was in Germany for the Baader-Meinhof festivities. There is going to be more of this and I just can’t wait for the explanation from the Left and MSM That makes it all good again.
nearly everyone can relate to standing in a crowd and watching a sporting event, and that increases the shock value of a terrorist attack that all of us should have seen coming.
yes, but it takes the reflexive womens tradition of commisserating over the details to the point you think yuou know the victims and can associate with them
ie. what you mention above does not happen unless you do that. which is why you did it, and they are doing it. everyone has to give to the cause, especially if they think their habits and things now are from a different source and not the same reason.
well, you cant get emotionally close to a victim unless you assemble anecdotal stories and get them to be like you, as you did in your post. your helping them. and now will tell me your not, your exploring, etc.
but thats not true…
the guy press will not get the men to associate their victim status with victims!!
its a lifetime habit of literary injoyment of picking your wounds that wont stop. and if it wont stop, then the women will emote us down a toilet as their minds cant handle the combined misery of 300 million people, with a few billion thrown in
which is why, they are so twisted up, they have to be toled who to get upset over. gosnell? nope.. bombing, yup… cutting clitoral folds for marital bliss? nope… and so on.
women are not equal to men
they are naturally more paranoid and fearful
this means, that if there is not someone else there to make them feel safe, and protect them, they do whatever fear controls them to
thats why most of our politics is victim fear based
what was the big selling point of julia the cartoon woman?
that her life was all planned for her from cradle to grave, she didnt even have to fear bad choices!!!
whats divorce the modern way about?
not fearing the permanent choice you made was the wrong one…
what is the point of having others raise your kids
you fear being blamerd for doing it wrong
what si the reason so many women work when so many say they want to be home (other than economics)… they fear what their living says about them
why dont they make as much money at work
they fear asking for a raise
why is their political system not matriarchy but nanny statism? because a matriarchy is strong women unafraid, and a nanny is a strong woman herding the fearful children…
how did they get the women to not like their men? they caused them to fear all men including or especially their mates
modern women run and live on fear
by the way, men die in greater numbers as they fear less… and the change in police came from the change in who was a police officer!!! when it was men, they could be fearless, and protect the people. but now its women, they are not fearless, and you have to protect the police officer. (the more equal woman to all), so they sacrifice the citezenry now all the time. one intersting study i cant find any more, pointed out that the number of civilian shootings goes up in relation to the number of women on the force as a whole.
modern liberal woman, is more fearful than her past relations… can stand up to less, and ultimately, hide that their lives are fear driven, not happiness and family driven any more…
did i also mention the fear of small animals, fear of bugs, fear of noises.. the feminist on the first floor is constantly calling my wife to borrow me as she cant handle reality.
After 9/11 I spent about two weeks attempting to look at this country through a terrorist’s eyes. What targets would I attack? How would I attack them? What vulnerabilities exist? And how could I maximize terror while minimizing risk? It is truly frightening when you consider the possibilities.
Thus far lifestyles and geographic location have been important indicators of risk. I live in a very small city; never fly commercial; and attend very few public events. There are definite advantages to living a boring, sedate lifestyle.
Artfldgr: once again, I will point out that you are misunderstanding my points as well as my point of view.
By the way, all of the people I was listening to on talk shows yesterday, who were so involved with their own loss of the feeling of safety, happened to have been men.
But I will also point out that I am in agreement that, in the main, on average, women are tend to be more fearful (and especially more anxious) than men tend to be. There are excellent biological reasons for that, and there are certain advantages and disadvantages to the particular emotional makeup of each sex.
And all of that is of course a generalization—there are enormous differences between individuals of each sex and a great deal of overlap between the sexes.
I lived in Berlin in the early 1980s and I checked my car for bombs every morning before driving to work. There were numerous terrorist groups in Germany then. We got so many warnings that after awhile you started to ignore them. Then they would bomb somebodys car. That gets you attention.
Re the comments from Mr. Frank and kaba1776, about what the terrorists *could* be doing: I remember a conversation with my brother a week or two after 9/11 in which we considered all sorts of fairly small-scale, fairly easy things terrorists could do that would half-paralyze society, or completely transform it. We really more or less expected that sort of thing to start, and were a bit surprised as the months went by and nothing happened. Let’s hope they don’t get any smarter.
I think the “sense of safety” is really what drives the gun control crowd. Gun violence is down pretty dramatically the past 20 years or so. A vast majority that remains is inner city, black on black and mostly drug related. There is an unrealistic belief that the rest of us could be a victim of gun violence. What we should be worried about is crossing the street, driving our cars, cleaning our gutters, etc. I don’t worry about a bomb when I am in a crowd or on mass transit. I can see ground zero from my office window, but you need to try and keep things in perspective.
Mac: I’ve been wondering similar things since 9/11, and I long ago came to the conclusion that there is some reason they have decided such tactics wouldn’t be a good idea here. Perhaps because they think we would retaliate in a fairly strong way and they don’t want to run the risk of activating that sort of response? I really am not sure, but I think it’s a choice of theirs rather than an inability.
One reason they haven’t engaged in a lot of small scale operations could be as neo says from fear of retaliation. A retaliation of a different sort. They surely have sleeper cells here, but not as many as some believe. What they do have is a fairly large pool of students available for recruitment. They’re here legally and there are enough of them to present problems tracking. A string of small operations would be relatively easy, but the risk of mass expulsion and loss of this asset would be too great.
artfldgr is correct that there is no ‘safety’. You’re safe until you’re not safe. However, terror attacks cause stress and anxiety for those who are not victims and provoke Western governments into wasting money and creating bureaucracies.
“Perhaps because they think we would retaliate in a fairly strong way and they don’t want to run the risk of activating that sort of response? I really am not sure, but I think it’s a choice of theirs rather than an inability.”
It is a matter of choice on the part of the jihadi, but if they chose the path of subjecting us to the campaign they have waged against the Israelis our government’s response would be similar to the response after Newtown: restrict the rights of law abiding citizens while doing absolutely nothing to confront the real threat. The so-called war on terror has killed a lot of jihadi, but the leaders of jihad know they have plenty of cannon fodder and they are in it for the long haul (centuries if need be). We’re in for the next election cycle.
The 9/11 attacks didn’t affect my sense of safety. From experience with random acts of violence, such as being a passenger in a fatal car accident when I was 6, I long ago came to the conclusion that the safety balloon can be punctured at any time. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.
Thoughts, some of which may conflict:
There have been Islamic terrorist incidents here since 9/11, but mostly of the thwarted variety. Their successes have mostly been elsewhere.
The Islamic terrorist network that projected force from there to here on 9/11 was broken apart.
We don’t know what law enforcement, intel, clandestine, military, etc, have done to prevent more attacks since 9/11. Maybe they have been more successful that we credit them.
That said, Islamic terrorists have been attacking elsewhere continuously since (and before) 9/11. It would seem that terrorists could attack here in the manner.
However, Islamic terrorists are more interested in fighting for dominance in their homelands than here. The terrorist organizations that are still operational therefore have focused their resources over there rather than here.
Which leaves only the self-actualized lone wolf types, the kind who listen to Awlaki sermons every night, to try something here.
After 9/11, US targets in Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan satisfied the Islamic terrorist lust for American blood.
Operation Iraqi Freedom really did decimate Islamic terrorists, but they have been revitalized in the Arab Spring.
How ’bout that meteor that nobody had any inkling was hurtling towards earth?
If that’s jarring to our collective sense of safety, what is?
. . . ermmmm, asteroid?
MJR, When someone names it Wormwood, then I’ll worry.
Seriously though, I think that a sense of safety is predicated on one’s personal experience even more than one’s gender. If you’ve been in a near fatal car accident, or lost a loved one to an abrupt unexpected death, your sense of safety going to be far different than that of someone who has only observed such things from afar, so to speak.
Yes, 9-11 affected my sense of safety somewhat, but nowhere near the way it affected those whose loved ones died, or who were at Ground Zero or the Pentagon as it happened before their very eyes.
Wow . . . hadda look it up . . . Revelation 8:11!
By the way I fluffed another one: in my initial post (12:40 am), I meant to ask,
If that is NOT jarring to our collective sense of safety, what is?
——
Personal sense/experience, as RandomThoughts (1:16 am) posits?
Or perhaps an M J R sense of irrational paranoia?
James, I too was thinking of Baader-Meinhof. And the Provos, etc. The Crazy Years are back, and it will take awhile for them to wind down. If we could survive the 70s, we can survive this. And this time we don’t have to contend with leisure suits!
Surellin:
Disco! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.