A Nation of Wimps

I'm embarrassed by the collective hand wringing our nation exhibits, every time some real or would be terrorist manages to achieve his fifteen minutes of fame. I've come to believe that the typical American citizen's lack of backbone may become our country's fatal flaw.

The attack on the World Trade Centers, and the Pentagon, were despicable attacks perpetrated by the people that I consider responsible for most of the troubles in the world. That is, every intolerant, radical, dogmatic, fundamentalist, who is willing to listen to the propaganda of any priest, preacher, imam, rabbi, or cult leader, that offers a key to heaven, virgins for the taking, exclusive salvation, the Divine right to homeland, or cool aid. I know people who lost family members in the September the eleventh attack, and they truly have my sympathy. I, as much as anyone, would like to see each and every person, associated with the attacks, removed from the face of the earth. Most of us will never be directly injured by, or involved in a terrorist attack. It's time to move on. We need to be pissed off by the attacks, not pissing on ourselves in fear because of them. Our government cannot protect us from every possible terrorist scenario, any more than it can protect us from floods, flu, or traffic accidents. Things will get through the cracks, as evidenced by the latest near airline disaster. I believe that our current administration, and the previous one, tries to protect us from terrorists, but is failing to protect us from ourselves.

In this country, we seem to think that we are in titled to protection from every calamity that can befall us, and we expect these protections with out regard to their costs. We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and lost thousands of lives, chasing what is probably way less than a thousand Al Qaeda members. I've read that it has cost us over a million dollars for every Al Qaeda member, insurgent in Iraq, and Taliban member that we have killed. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed or displaced because of these actions. And yet, in this country we resist the simple cost effective things that could help protect us. We feel violated by the thought of a full body scan in airports, and then we allow little old blue haired ladies to be extensively searched so that we are not accused of profiling. We allow millions of illegal immigrants to cross our borders so that we can cheaply have our grass cut and our houses built.

We believe that our children are in imminent danger of child molestation, we protect them from lead paint, vaccines, bullying, tumbling into an open toilet, or a bucket. We worry that we may lower their self esteem if we spank them, or if they are not constantly praised, regardless of their lack of success. We protect them beyond reason, then we allow them to become obese and give them a guided missile to drive, unsupervised, when they turn sixteen. We seem to even expect protection from our ultimate demise, despite all evidence that it is ultimately unavoidable. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, but we are way down the list in terms of measurable good health. We seem to be willing to spend every penny for a long life, but skimp on things that make a good life. We need to remember that most of the things we fear won't happen to us. Like Bobby McFerrin's song says, "don't worry, be happy".