It's Time To Get Serious

If the war on terror is in fact global and without a battle field, it's time Congress put aside their petty differences and figure out just how we're going to handle cases that land on our doorstep.

The current argument is whether or not the Boston bombings were jihad or not.  The answer is still out, but considering what is known at the moment there is a pretty good case for it.

Then comes the argument as to whether the survivor should be tried as an enemy combatant or not.  The government has opted to try him as a citizen, not a jihadist.

Due to our current laws they had to make the decision.  There will be a lot of opposition to this move even though the end for the bomber will be the same.  Unless the Justice Department opts not to seek the death penalty.  With this administration one never knows.

So therein is the problem.  How does this country handle cases such as these with consistency.  It will take a comprehensive look at the laws now on the books and changes that are made from insightful analysis rather than a rush to 'justice'.

Of this we can be sure. There is an ongoing war against the west by Islamic radicals.  They come in all colors and from a variety of countries.  I'd be willing to bet that any country that has a large Muslim presence has it's share of jihadists and whether or not they're organized matters little.  The one thing they have in common is contempt for all things western.

Following up on these people is no easy task.  Tightening up the sharing of information between agencies would help.  Like Congress, they need to get over their territorial jealousies.  On the other hand, there isn't the manpower to follow each and every suspect 24/7.

It's time to get serious though.  While the potheads in Denver are taking potshots at one another and the administration is redefining our vocabulary again, the plotting continues. This news was just breaking when I came to my office to skim the headlines. Canada foils major terrorist attack possibly on New York City...

It won't be the last to make headlines and it's something Mayor Bloomberg can't ban. And yes, the bad guys will have guns without permits and American civilians will be killed on American soil.  At the very least let's be able to deal with the aftermath without our usual bickering.  That's something I would applaud.

What We No Longer Recognize In Ourselves

Now that the Boston bombers are off the streets criticisms are in full bluster.  My, we are an intolerant, impatient people.

To see people cheering law enforcement after the last of the two young men was apprehended was both understandable and disturbing.  One, because the horror and the accompanying anxiety was at an end.  Then there was what was left of a very young life being carted away to an uncertain but predictably unpleasant fate.  That I cannot cheer.  I'd rather breath a sigh of relief.

Criticisms of how the FBI handled the situation are going full bore.  I think the combined units responsible for public safety did an excellent job.  Should the FBI be blamed in retrospect because even though cautioned by the Russians they couldn't unearth anything damning about the older of the two suspects?  I think not.  We don't yet arrest people for crimes uncommitted.  We do, however, have a problem as to how to classify certain crimes but that is not the fault of the FBI.

I moved on to skimming various articles about the men, their families and friends.  Then came the comments.  First was criticism of how the various media outlets handled the events as they unfolded. No one did it right and the criticisms were scathing depending on political persuasion. Understand, the media puts out false information not knowing for sure if it is in fact false in the mad rush to get the scoop.  It's insane and of no use.  Twitter is even worse.  Yet we eat it up.  Ill informed it seems is better than uninformed.  Forget properly informed.

All this segways into current discussions on bullying and cyber bullying. It's who we are anymore.  No one can have a different opinion from my own.  The idiots! And that's tame to say the least.  Look at Congress and the President.  The bickering goes on, the name calling, the disparaging.  Isn't it all bullying and doesn't it stem from hate?  Hate used to be a strong and seldom called for term but this day and age it seems to be part of the 'new normal'.

Even in our local papers we've lost ourselves in the confusion over bullying and criticism.  In a conversation about bullying a reader questioned how youngsters were to know the difference when so many of the comments on local blogs were so nasty.  The administrator of one of those blogs suggested she didn't know that difference.

I suggest she does.  Criticism can be leveled without nastiness.  My own readers take me to task quite often, we just don't agree, but my regulars are never nasty.  The comments on the blogs she alluded to often are.  There is nothing constructive about nasty criticism unless it tells the character of the nameless that level it.

Do any of us see ourselves in that light anymore?  Can we just skew semantics and expect it to be found acceptable?  Or all we all deluding ourselves thinking everything is fine and dandy when in fact we don't really like one another very much. On any level. Unless we are in total sync. Which of course we never are.

I liked the 'old normal' better but I fear it has been permantly replaced. I often feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills that will never again function as they once did. Well oiled, running smoothly, contributing to the overall well being of the community.  I wonder if there are any Sancho Panzas left to  with whom to pair?

Culture Of Hate

If anything points to the truth that merely doing background checks on those who want to purchase a gun or limiting the types that can be purchased or the number of bullets a clip can hold will do anything to prevent horror wrought by hatred, the Boston situation should be it. It isn't the case for or against guns  that needs to be studied, but our minds.  What in the world is going on?

We have been witness to what seems an inordinate amount of violence and death lately and it has all stemmed from hatred.  Even the comments on the news sites and blogs are filled with it. Wishing equally horrible ends to the perpetrators as had been the fate of their victims.  It too is hate.  A continuation of it. And really, no less frightening.

Other than trying to fill too much air time with "experts" analyzing the young men, I've seen no one seriously asking what is going on in our collective heads.  If we kill them as they have others it will do nothing but perpetuate the violence without giving us answers.  Just what those answers might be is beyond me, but you see the animosity everywhere.

Look at the world where the religions hate one another.  Many even hate various branches of their own. Shiia and Sunni. It makes believing in a loving, forgiving entity difficult. Countries hate one another.  Pakistan and India.  North Korea and South.

Take it down another level to politics.  There is no love lost between the Democrats and Republicans and lately you've seen more and more division among the ranks of each.  What core flaw in we humans is coming unraveled?

I look at the local blogs and find as much venom as on the national level.  No one can have an opinion without being disparaged by someone with an opposing view.  I take my share of lumps and it can get pretty tiresome.

I think part of the blame, at least, is because of the widespread use of anonymity.  My, we get so brave - and nasty - when our real names aren't attached to our thoughts. The language you often find is an insult.  Just as I don't think one needs to be sexually explicit or gross or mean to be funny, I don't think commenters need to use filth and profanity to make a point though too many obviously don't agree.

I look at these most recent young men along with the one from Sandy Hook and Aurora and so many others with the utmost despair. Not hatred. Despair. What drives these young people to hate their lives so much they are willing to lose them while taking as many as possible with them?  These are only the ones we've put names and faces to.  Think of the gang activity in places like Chicago where the carnage continues on a daily basis where there are no names and faces, just casualties.

Were it only Chicago it might be more easily studied, but what we're witnessing today is world wide. If it isn't a gang it's likely to be a lone wolf. Wanting to make their mark.  Well, they're making it, that's for sure.

Why, though, what has driven them to choose mayhem and death?  There isn't a registry or a deprivation of goods in the world that can answer that question.  Especially when no one is looking for one.

A Reminder We Need To Heed

As the details of our latest disaster unfold it has occurred to me we need to take a good look at it and so should the media and our politicians.

This is nothing to be politicized as some have already tried to do.  We can't blame the Tea Party nor the President nor the pundits who as usual babbled non-stop yesterday without having a single fact other than there had been a pair of explosions.

We can blame whoever did it for taking a cowardly way of expressing hatred.  That is what it is.  When one has no regard for human life be it the elderly or a child, it has to be hatred.  It wasn't combat.  It was targeted at civilians.  It has to be hatred. Why do they hate so much?  Is it a radical?  Is it someone mentally unbalanced?  One isn't necessarily the other and we need to be sure before we react.  Recoil at the horror of it, of course, but for assumptions make sure they are correct.

The fact of the matter is we're all in this together.  Whoever planned the attack didn't care if those  targeted were Republican or Democrat or Independent or black or white or man or woman or adult or child.  They weren't even all Americans.  How many foreign visitors come to this country to run the marathons?  Lots.

What do we do now?  Other than the media over reacting as usual, we'll find out who did it and why. He/she will be prosecuted and incarcerated. In an ideal scenario. I can't help but wonder, though, if it will have an effect of gun legislation.  If our nerves are so frayed these days that the idea of having a gun is somehow comforting.  Even, as in this case, it couldn't have been used to protect ones self.

It also shows, along with the knife attack in Texas, that a gun registry would not have prevented it.  We don't know at this point if it was indeed an act of terrorism or just one more disconnected crackpot.  Instructions for bomb building can be easily found on the internet.

They say pressure cookers were used.  We certainly aren't going to attempt to ban them are we?  Or register them?  Pro gun advocates suggest the gun registry will do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of those that shouldn't have them.  They're right you know.  No more than the registering of xacto knives or pressure cookers.

In all the scurrying around after disasters to look like something constructive is being done, it's time to take the time to see that something is in fact worthwhile rather than an exercise in futility. And please, don't pass any hurry up legislation to prove my point because you're to lazy to find your own which will probably be discredited anyway because of your haste.

We're off to the Seattle area tomorrow.  I'm hoping we'll be able to go where we want without facing searches in the face of misguided panic.  This day and age one can expect that something could happen no matter where we go.  All the legislation in the world won't change that.  What might, however, if it is radicals rather than those who are ill, is to go about our business without fear of the unknown and really less than likely without letting them win their psychological victory.

If it is mental, well, no amount of legislation is going to fix that either.  There are just too many cracks through which they can slip.

Maybe We Ought To Do Away With Marriage!

Okay, the Republicans have closed the door on a voting block that is growing by the day.  Should Gays (all inclusive) be allowed to marry, number one, and should they be allowed to share benefits that heterosexual couples do.

Between this and the abortion debate, I wonder if we mere mortals should be deciding these things, what's more the government.  On abortion the argument has centered on when actual life begins.  I can accept it's when a heart beat is discernible.  Yet I am pro choice when it comes to egregious causes of pregnancy.  Mainly because if a woman is raped I would assume she has time to know whether or not she conceived.  The same with victims of incest.  Long before the pieces come together to form a human life. But it's not that simple is it?  What about at the moment of conception when all the living parts come together to make a whole?  Who should decide this? Should it be left to government officials?  I have my doubts.  Look at the politicians.  Do you want a Todd Akin making those decisions for you?

Similarly,  for the gay marriage issue, why is it a governmental issue?  It's a social and religious issue.  Who is wise enough to decide how marriage should be defined?  Perhaps it would be better if in the eyes of the government those who wish to join together form civil unions with the understanding that all that goes with it applies, from benefit distribution to dissolution of the union and the penalties that may apply.

If people want to go beyond a mere civil union and have the blessing of their church and their God, then that's between the two entities. A church wedding with all the frills. Let's face it, how can two atheists marry if they believe in no God?  If, however, they are a man and a woman they are considered married even with only a civil ceremony.

It is such a complex issue where one side is considered sick, demented and a whole lot of other names, while the other that can be just as vile yet be okay as long as it's the two sexes represented. It's not something the government should be trying to sort out because they can't leave their religious beliefs out of it.  They weren't elected to office to oversee and dictate my personal beliefs.

Time for the old cliche about the reasons for separation of church and state.  No religion should have the right to force it's beliefs on those who believe differently, yet here they are trying to define how a country should live and marry.  It's no different than the government trying to force it's beliefs on religious entities such is happening with parts of Obamacare.

The government is to provide guidelines, laws, under which we choose to live - or leave. Religions provide guidance for the soul determined by whatever set of teachings they choose to subscribe to.  They may parallel one another but they should never become one and the same to the exclusion of separation. Then we have Islam.  We can see how well that's working for it's people.