Guest Post: A Thoughtful View On Boston: Empathize But Don't Be Terrorized

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I have highlighted security expert Bruce Schneier’s writings in the past, including his recent excellent article: “The Internet is a Surveillance State.”  In his piece yesterday published in The Atlantic, he offers us some serious wisdom about how to think about the tragic event in Boston.  His key message is to “empathize, but not be terrorized.”  My favorite excerpts are below: 

As the details about the bombings in Boston unfold, it’d be easy to be scared. It’d be easy to feel powerless and demand that our elected leaders do something — anything — to keep us safe.

 

It’d be easy, but it’d be wrong. We need to be angry and empathize with the victims without being scared. Our fears would play right into the perpetrators’ hands — and magnify the power of their victory for whichever goals whatever group behind this, still to be uncovered, has. We don’t have to be scared, and we’re not powerless. We actually have all the power here, and there’s one thing we can do to render terrorism ineffective: Refuse to be terrorized.

 

It’s hard to do, because terrorism is designed precisely to scare people — far out of proportion to its actual danger. A huge amount of research on fear and the brain teaches us that we exaggerate threats that are rare, spectacular, immediate, random — in this case involving an innocent child — senseless, horrific and graphic. Terrorism pushes all of our fear buttons, really hard, and we overreact.

 

There are things we can do to make us safer, mostly around investigation, intelligence, and emergency response, but we will never be 100-percent safe from terrorism; we need to accept that.

 

How well this attack succeeds depends much less on what happened in Boston than by our reactions in the coming weeks and months. Terrorism isn’t primarily a crime against people or property. It’s a crime against our minds, using the deaths of innocents and destruction of property as accomplices. When we react from fear, when we change our laws and policies to make our country less open, the terrorists succeed, even if their attacks fail. But when we refuse to be terrorized, when we’re indomitable in the face of terror, the terrorists fail, even if their attacks succeed.

 

Don’t glorify the terrorists and their actions by calling this part of a “war on terror.” Wars involve two legitimate sides. There’s only one legitimate side here; those on the other are criminals. They should be found, arrested, and punished. But we need to be vigilant not to weaken the very freedoms and liberties that make this country great, meanwhile, just because we’re scared.

Bruce is basically expressing the same sentiment as Benjamin Franklin 250 years ago when this wise founding father stated:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

This is as true today as it was at the time of the Revolutionary War.

Full article here.

Comments

[Canucklehead]

http://shoebat.com/2013/04/17/innocent-saudi-has-ties-to-several-al-qaed...

[rich_wicks]

Oh for FUCKS sake.

binLaden was a terrorist, wasn't he?

We flew his family out of the country on 9/12, when all planes were grounded - Bush did this.

They shared the same last name didn't they?  Are you bitching about that?

If you're not, then you have a problem of hypocrisy.  If you are, well, at least you're consistent.

[Canucklehead]

So let me guess... your IQ is somewhere around 84...

http://www.photius.com/rankings/national_iq_scores_country_ranks.html

[rich_wicks]

How well you score on a glorified math test isn't too relevant.

If you know fibonnaci sequences, powers, and sets - you can do well on an IQ test.  Anybody can, it doesn't measure intelligence at all, it measures your familiarity with IQ tests.

I scored a 140 the last time I took one.  It's just a stupid number, and if you ever go to a MENSA meeting, all you'll hear is people whining about why they don't do better in life, because, after all, "I have a high IQ".

I scored a 140 because I'm an electrical engineer.  It has absolutely nothing to do with my intelligence.  Einstein scored 160, because he was actually a shitty mathematician - I'm certain his wife could have done substantially better.

[Tunga]

We iS all viCTIMS now. 
 
Terroroize that.
 
Bitchez 

[Tunga]

wir sind alle Schlampen jetzt

[Tunga]

???????

[Tunga]

kelbiet

[Psquared]

"Terrorism" is quickly becoming the most overused word in the English language. But under the NDAA everything is terrorism because it gives the government vast sweeping powers.

[22winmag]

I remember back in the 70s and 80s when the word "terrorism" was a joke... something that only happened over in shit-and-piss countries in Europe. The word was though of as a joke, because back then, before the pussification of America, the concept of a tactic (which is all terrorism really is) seriously threatening the most free, most heavily armed society on Earth was considered laughable. Fast forward 30 years and the concept of a tactic such as terriorism actually threatening the fabric of society is not only no longer laughable, it's now a religion.

[Icantstopthinki...]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-17/bomb-probe-turns-to-public-with...

They're calling it a smokeless powder bomb.

I'm gonna guess it's going to get really difficult to pack your own ammo soon.

[Kirk2NCC1701]

Someone called that yesterday in a blog here.

I guess pressure cookers would out too, were it not for the Bed, Bath & Beyond lobby.

[therearetoomany...]

Pressure cookers don't kill people, people kill people!

[AchtungAffen]

I wonder which anti-goobmint/libertarian/phallic-insecurity filled gun crazy/militia/white supremacist group actually pulled this one off. Murdoch media is looking for the "brown" scapegoat, but if I had to bet, it'll be on homegrown crackers doing it.

[22winmag]

By the end of this month, more Americans will be killed and severely injured by DRUNK DRIVING ILLEGAL ALIENS than were killed an injured in Boston.

However, drunk driving illegal aliens are not scary like guns and bombs, and therefore politicans are not likely to use them an excuse for fear mongering, new laws to restrict liberty, or a reason to fund those bloated shit-and-piss alphabet soup agencies that wouldn't last two seconds in a shooting match with American civilians.

[George Washington]

CORRECT:

– You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

– You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

— You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane

— You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack

–You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack

— You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack

– You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack

–You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack

–You are 9 times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack

–You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

–You are 8 times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack

– You are 6 times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack

[falak pema]

GW : you can spew all the statistics you want but what statistics don't say is the QUALITATIVE heirarchy of acts and consequences.

Some acts and facts have more social impact on our perception of society than others, like smoking cigarettes. 

Whatever the dead count may be in cold hard terms.

[Clowns on Acid]

It was not (and still not) called terrorism when Bill Ayers was planting bombs a few years ago.....

[poldark]

My sympathies to all the victims and their families. But, I am reminded of the millions of dollars Bostonians gave to a terrorist group called the IRA. They bombed and killed hundreds of innocent British people.

[Notarocketscientist]

Oh boo fucking hoo.  Money well spent in an effort to evict the colonizing British pricks!  

How about the fucking trillions the US has donated to its military to carry out the LIE OF WMD in blowing the shit out of an entire country and KILLING and MAIMING hundreds of thousands?

How's that for the Mother of All Terrorist Acts....

Ah check that - how about dropping two atomic bombs on civilians in WW2.  That is indeed the MOATA.

[Notarocketscientist]

Funny I think I read the same thing coming out of Pakistan... or was it Afghanistan... anyway doesn't much matter where... it went something like this:

After another innocent family was murdered when a drone dropped a bomb on their home terrorist expert Ali Ben Ali said to the people in the village who survived the blast 'empathize but don't be terrorized'

One village was quoted as responding to Ali 'but these fuckers rain bombs down on our head day after day after day - how can we NOT be terrorized you fucking idiot?'

[rsnoble]

I seen someone else mention what I was wondering..........no one caught anything on security cameras when they are everywhere?  Surely you just can't walk around with a 100 pound(if not heavier) pressure cooker all up and down the street in multiple locations and not have it on a recording?  There should be cameras all over down there.

[rsnoble]

They must be biased cameras.

[Flying Tiger Comics]

Tip for the fascists: if you want to find the perpetrators...

Buy a fucking mirror.

[MickV]

All political theater. The Marxist MO--- create the problem in order to "solve it", and the adjunct "don't let a good crisis go to waste".

If this were a "terrorist" attack, then hundreds would have been killed. Watch the concussion of the "bomb"--- it is completely vertical--- meant to maim those in proximity--- thus all the leg injuries. The maimed make better props than the dead--- because they are visible. Queue the outrage, queue the heartstrings, queue government riding to the rescue to prevent them damn rednecks from rising up against the wise and just government. Queue the Usurper riding to the rescue.

Large purchases of black powder will be banned. Why do you think that is?

Look at what you are seeing in front of your face.

[SoNH80]

Reading the ZH reactions to the Boston attack, it has been more than a little disturbing in how automatic the "false flag false flag false flag" chorus was.  Well, if there is to be scapegoating, who's the scapegoat?  Where's the manifesto, the catchy name of the non-existent movement?  What's the motivation? 

There doesn't seem to be any here.  It would appear that MY CITY is the victim of a psychopath of some kind, murdering without purpose other than blood lust, no remorse, no program of any kind.  Ted Kaczynski and New York's "Mad Bomber" weren't false anything, they were just cold-blooded murderers. This is what we're dealing with here, my God, another Summer of Sam if they can't catch this evil nut.  I hope that there is a break in the case soon.