Have the terrorists and criminals already won?
If, as a nation, as communities and as individuals we react to their threats and acts of violence by giving up our personal liberties and throwing millions (communities) or trillions (nationally) of dollars at knee-jerk, emotional, ineffective so-called solutions because someone in our own country tells us that doing so will make us safe then, yes, they have. They’re just waiting to collect their winnings.
Complete safety does not exist. It cannot be purchased at ANY price. It's not available to billionaires or to countries. Pursuit of it is a fool's errand. There are degrees of safety and consequently degrees of cost and risk. We have to learn to spend (budget) responsibly and to accept the risk and incorporate it into our lives. Uncle Sam cannot provide it, no matter what his intentions are.
There is no doubt the communities of Sandy Hook Elementary and Newtown, Connecticut have suffered tragic and traumatic loss. But no matter how hurtful that loss is, it does not justify the infringement on the constitutional rights of 300 million people. More pertinent to this post and more local to Newtown is the consideration by that community of tearing down the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of the shooting (not the temporary school the students have been relocated to that has been renamed Sandy Hook Elementary), and building a new one nearby at the cost of millions of dollars. Yes, what happened there is horrific. But as a nation and as communities we cannot afford to tear down the site of every horrific event.
If, as a nation, as communities and as individuals we react to their threats and acts of violence by giving up our personal liberties and throwing millions (communities) or trillions (nationally) of dollars at knee-jerk, emotional, ineffective so-called solutions because someone in our own country tells us that doing so will make us safe then, yes, they have. They’re just waiting to collect their winnings.
Complete safety does not exist. It cannot be purchased at ANY price. It's not available to billionaires or to countries. Pursuit of it is a fool's errand. There are degrees of safety and consequently degrees of cost and risk. We have to learn to spend (budget) responsibly and to accept the risk and incorporate it into our lives. Uncle Sam cannot provide it, no matter what his intentions are.
There is no doubt the communities of Sandy Hook Elementary and Newtown, Connecticut have suffered tragic and traumatic loss. But no matter how hurtful that loss is, it does not justify the infringement on the constitutional rights of 300 million people. More pertinent to this post and more local to Newtown is the consideration by that community of tearing down the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of the shooting (not the temporary school the students have been relocated to that has been renamed Sandy Hook Elementary), and building a new one nearby at the cost of millions of dollars. Yes, what happened there is horrific. But as a nation and as communities we cannot afford to tear down the site of every horrific event.
The World Trade Center is being rebuilt because
it fell. The Pentagon was not torn down. Its damage was repaired. Was the
government building in Oklahoma City torn down? I don’t know. But if it was, it’s
probably because it was irreparable, not because of the memories of what
happened there. Columbine was repaired. Did Virginia Tech tear down a building?
Don’t think so. Did Fort Hood? Don’t think so.
What Newtown families are considering now is
spending millions of dollars through borrowing and debt that they will pay a
very small part of but that thousands of others will pay for years to come.
They’re proposing to spend mostly other people’s money – money they don’t
really have and that could be better spent elsewhere. If instead of the mass
murder happening at school, if it had been smaller scale and in their own
homes, if a deranged gunman entered their house and killed their child or their
whole family, would they tear down their own house? No, of course they wouldn’t.
It’s very likely they’d sell it. It’s likely they’d have difficulty doing so.
But at some level they consider it reasonable that someone else could live
there and unless they were very wealthy there’s no way they’d consider tearing
down the house and taking the total financial loss themselves. They wouldn’t
spend their own money. So why should they spend someone else’s?
When our children are afraid of the dark, we
tell them there’s nothing to be afraid of there. When they’re afraid of ghosts
we tell them ghosts are not real. When they’re afraid of the boogey man we tell
them he isn’t real and we make them stop watching scary movies. There are no
ghosts in Sandy Hook Elementary. There are only memories. Those memories and
their effects need to be dealt with in other ways. The school needs renovation
to cover up the damage. It does not need to be torn down. We should not be
teaching children to live in fear, to run away, or to make their problems the
burdens of others. Children take their cues from us. If we are not afraid, they
cannot mirror our fears.
Criminal mass murderers may only see their
deeds in terms of scores, records, excitement, revenge or glory. They may not
intend or expect to live to see their names in print or to know whether they
achieved the score or record they sought. So they probably aren’t thinking in
terms of long-term effects on a community or a nation.
Terrorists are different. They revel in both
the short and long term effects of their evil. They know they cannot engage and
defeat us militarily except in small skirmishes. They are amused and grow ever
more confident when we thrash politically and spend irresponsibly and
ineffectively when the threat level goes up, approaches our shores or breeches
our borders. They love it because that’s how they can defeat us. They’ve
learned that we’ve set the conditions ourselves for our own demise. All they
need do is antagonize. The Boston Marathon Bombing or any like don’t need to
kill hundreds. Our enemies will take the 3 deaths, the twenty or so
dismemberments and the 170+ injuries and do so gladly. They celebrate our
chaos. They’re not fighting a short term conflict. They’re in it for the
duration. And they know that we cannot afford to fight them indefinitely in the
ways we have.
The Boston Marathon Bombing appears to be
terrorism but may not be Al Qaeda. Sandy Hook was criminal, not terrorism. But
it’s not a question of IF terrorism will find its way into our schools. It’s a
matter of WHEN. We’ve already welcomed both the criminal and the terrorist into
our schools with ridiculous so-called “gun free zones” and the unwillingness of
so many to consider guns in schools as a measure of protection and safety. We’re
not prepared for the violence that’s coming and we cannot afford to tear
everything down and rebuild it when it comes. If we do, they win many times
over – the initial damage including injury, death and property, the fear they
cause, the cost of repairing damage (smaller) or rebuilding (larger), the
political churn that results, the loss of credibility we suffer on the world
stage, the emboldening of others who might also commit violence against us, the
further restriction, reduction or infringement of our individual liberties –
the very freedom they hate us having, etc.
===
No real surprise here. The task force panel went with the emotional decision and is recommending Sandy Hook Elementary be demolished and rebuilt on the same property.
The Fox News and CBS articles are the most informative and say almost the same things. The CNN article is worthless. CBS points out that there may be private donations to help fund a new school.
The price tag? $57 million! In this economy. With taxes too plentiful and too high, out of control government spending and high unemployment. $57 million.
What will they do if another massacre occurs in the newly built school? Will they tear it down again and rebuild it?
Both the Fox and CBS articles make mention of evil winning through this decision. That was the point of my original post on this topic. Evil has won - again. But this time it's not the shooter at fault. At most, he's a contributor to this recommendation.
I was taught a long time ago that, in business and leadership positions, if you're surrounded by people who agree with you then you're surrounded by the wrong people. The 28 people on the panel voted unanimously to demolish and rebuild. They had the wrong people on the panel.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/10/newtown-panel-tear-down-sandy-hook-rebuild/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57584027/panel-tear-down-sandy-hook-elementary-rebuild-on-property/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/11/us/connecticut-sandy-hook-demolish/index.html
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