Posted on 04/19/2013 9:59:50 AM PDT by Lacey
m from Boston. Over the years, I lived in two apartments within a stone's throw of Monday's bombings. Over the years, I stood and cheered marathon runners countless times. I know every square inch of the area in all the pictures, which is hardly unusual. It's the center of Boston. My nephew was around the corner when the explosions went off.
This week's terror hit home for me.
And what to do? That is always the question.
Do you stop going to sporting events? Cultural events? Outdoor rallies?
I was raped around the corner from where the bombs hit. I did not stop going out, didn't quit my job working nights as a bartender. (I was raped during the day, anyway.) I was determined not to let the crazies run my life. I was younger then.
An even harder question: What do we want the government to do?
How much of our liberty and privacy are we willing to give up in the hopes that it might stop terror?
My answer to that now is also different from what it would have been in the days when I lived around the corner from the bombings. Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I'm a mother. Or maybe, probably mostly, it's because of the horrors we have seen. The two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 took off that morning from Boston (my old home) en route to Los Angeles (my current home). Until my children were born, I commuted on those flights from Boston to LA.
So this is my answer: I'd give up a lot. You want to put cameras on every corner? Fine with me. I don't care who pats me down at the airport. Pat away. Keep the confidences of my clients, but otherwise, my email is an open book. Mine my data; listen to my conversations. If it will keep my children safe, I don't care.
But of course, that's not the question, either. I'm a middle-aged, well-dressed (mostly), respectable-looking white woman. No one is really interested in me, terrorism-wise.
So when I ask myself or my students how much liberty we're willing to give up, I'm not really asking about us. I'm asking about "others" — and we all know which others I mean. As I write this, Monday night, I would not want to be a Muslim going through security at Logan Airport. Just for instance. And I don't blame the TSA if they pay more careful attention. I just want the planes to take off and land.
I ask my students: If there are two security lines at the airport, and one has three white businessmen about to whisk off their jackets, and the other has three Muslim men, which line do you join? I know what I would do. Is that racist? Are we?
As I write this, we don't know who planted the bombs that tore off limbs, took innocent lives, disrupted a race that celebrates "Patriots Day" every year, a race where this year the 26th mile was dedicated to the 26 who died in Newtown. But the media are reporting that a Saudi student was being questioned after the bombings because of his proximity, the nature of his injuries and, yes, his nationality. Racist?
How do you avoid being a racist when you're afraid?
How do you avoid offering up your privacy and liberty — or, more likely, someone else's — when you are terrified of terror?
How do you maintain a free society when you see limbs flying?
It's true these events are rare. It's true that, compared to other countries, we are indeed remarkably free and safe. And perhaps we also are spoiled to believe that in this day and age we can have it all: freedom and safety, privacy and security, not to mention equality.
When I was a kid, we worried about the Russians. We practiced going to the basement of the school in case of a nuclear attack. How odd to see those as less terrifying days — and to long for them.
I hope the Saudi man had nothing to do with it. I hope the culprits, when they are found, will not add to our collective terror of "others." I hope this will not be a case that makes us even more afraid of those who are different from us, even though 99.9 percent of them mean us no harm. I hope.
Look like Susan kinda got her wish.
well I screwed this posting up.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Spurious quotation, first printed in 1952.
Not disagreeing with the sentiment, just pointing out TJ didn’t say it.
bfl
TRANSLATION: "Please let it be a bitter, bible-clinging gun-clutcher so we can take more rights and property away from them."
:So this is my answer: I’d give up a lot. “
Then you deserve none. Funny. My daughter VOLUNTEERED to go to the place of ‘others’ in mid war to keep your pathetic, sorry ass free from terror. And you can do nothing but give it away. I’m glad America has people like her in it. You? You are human garbage.
Sorry, I first read it hear FRiend, copied and pasted to my FR homepage.
None, Susan. Because all the gun control in Massachusetts didn't stop these people from killing...
I'm a middle-aged, well-dressed (mostly), respectable-looking white woman. No one is really interested in me, terrorism-wise.
...from killing you, Susan. Because they are after you. If you're so stupid you think the problem is racism then you deserve it.
This woman is such a fool.
NOW she has no problem with the TSA singling out muslims for extra scrutiny???
Not long ago she would have been indignantly calling them islamophobes and threatening lawsuits.
1) Is this the hagged out supposed lawyer/commentator seen on TV?
2) I'd only like to be able to get in this b!tch's face and tell her that HER insecurities about the safety of her children is not wholesale license to condemn my Constitutionally affirmed rights, NONE whatsoever.
Go bark it up another tree; you don't get any empathy here you hagged out, has-been, two-bit excuse for someone with a brain.
“It’s about me! Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me! ME!!! Hear me?!?
“I was raped where the bomb went off! Hear me roar! Me!”
What is it with Democrats, anyway? Personalize *everything.*
Has it worked so far? Lets all live in government monitored controlled housing, government provided food, water and sanitary facilities so we can be safe from terrorism.
Wait a minute... Don't we have about 2 million people living like this now? In American prisons?
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams
It’s a writer’s tool to pull you into the story and form an emotional attachment to the writers position. J school 191 stuff.
That's very impressive, liberals, especially how of *my* freedom much you are willing to give up.
Absolutely the wrong thing to wish for. From past experience, 99% of the time, the terrorism comes from a man from the Middle East (often a Saudi). If this horrible case follows that pattern (and a Chechen will do, thank you) then we've narrowed the field of focus. Time for profiling. Time for suspicion based on cultural, religious and ethnic background. It just makes sense.
Life gets a lot more complex if the Japanese, the Eskimoes, the Methodists, the Kansas farm girls, and the Norwegians start planting bombs. With a diverse set of enemies, we'd really have our hands full.
Our best case scenario is for someone like a Saudi to have done this -- then we know how to approach mitigation. Profiling is long past due.
I agree about the J-school, and it still pi$$es me off. I hate cheap devices. Oh yeah, gives me an emotion but I don’t think it’s the one she had in mind.
Eeeeeew!
Some like Susan is probably why a Boston rapist because the Boston strangler.
We’ve heard from this woman for years - in her case it’s characteristic liberal egocentrism.
She repeatedly retails the rape story to establish her personal narrative of victimhood and claim to moral superiority.
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