Thanks, guys (not rktman), for being living, breathing examples of Normalcy Bias.
FYI (and for anyone else out there who doesn’t know what that is), Normalcy Bias is that point of view that paralyzes an individual (and, perhaps an entire society) into inaction because some potentially disastrous event “has never happened before, and therefore could never happen.” Yeah, until it does.
Examples: Rome and the Barbarians - few Romans, even among the elites with supposedly superior knowledge, believed that a bunch of barbarians who wore animal skins and lived in tents could come even remotely close to defeating Roman legions in the field, let alone sacking Rome...until Rome burned, courtesy of said animal-skin-wearing and tent-residing barbarians.
Germany and WW2 - Few believed that a Germany devastated by the mass casualties of WW1 and the collapse of its economy in the inter-war years would not only attempt to invade “invincible” France with “the world’s best army,” but would race through/around the vaunted Maginot Line and defeat France AND the British Expeditionary Force (some 350,000 men) AND the Belgian and Dutch armies in 6 weeks...until they did it, and with extremely light casualties, to boot.
The Holocaust - few believed it possible that any nation, let alone a “modern” and “cultured” nation like Germany, a nation of composers, artists, engineers and lawyers, would purposely set out to mercilessly wipe out the adherents of an entire religion (among many other so-called “undesirables”) during an attempt at world conquest...until the evidence showed that Germany did exactly that.
Pearl Harbor - few believed it possible that the “slant-eyed, backwards Japs” could pull off a sophisticated plan to wipe out a large part of the US Pacific Fleet...until they did it.
9/11 - few believed that anyone would ever purposely fly passenger jets into buildings full of people...until 19 Moslem terrorists did it, murdering some 3,000 innocents.
Barrack Obama - few believed that a half-black, Moslem-sympathizing, uber-Leftist candidate espousing the “fundamental transformation” of America could ever be nominated for President, let alone be elected, let alone be RE-elected after a disastrous first term...until the skeazy, Leftist, Moslem SOB actually did it.
Maybe if you actually understood that for any nation that can construct nuclear weapons, and which can also launch a rocket into space, conducting an EMP attack on ANY country is not that difficult. Read the linked article, and also this article for some insight: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/could_north_korea_destroy_the_us.html Note that even several Russian nuclear scientists admit that the Soviet designs for an EMP-enhanced warhead were (inadvertently) released to the Norks.
It is a time-tested axiom of human affairs that underestimating one’s rivals or enemies is a fatal conceit. I would rather ascribe great competence and evil intent to an adversary/enemy and prepare for the worst, than to don a pair of rose-colored sunglasses and poo-poo a potential civilization-ending attack because I was too arrogant and/or intellectually lazy to consider that “the barbarians” could possibly harm our “superior” civilization. As shown by the examples above, the arrogance or laziness of many others has led to disaster before, as it surely will do so again.
Crap. Now I “feel” excluded. Guess I better seek counseling. Not that I’ve ever needed it before. LOL!
Correct. The current “normalcy bias” is that most Americans don’t realize how fragile this “economy” is after 8 disastrous years of The Manchurian Candidate which followed W. spending like a drunken (whatever).
95 million of us know it first-hand and it’s eye-popping in starkness.