I want to kiss this writer. Amanda, thanks for writing this gem of a story and I certainly hope other journalists follow your lead. We need more of these types of articles that promote empowerment and the ‘hero in waiting’ concept, because as we have seen so clearly with the recent attacks, the government, military and police cannot be everywhere and at all times to protect us.
The government is also doing a huge disservice by promoting this fallacy that they can protect you and me at all times, and criminals and terrorists are taking advantage of this weakness in the nations of the world. Instead, leaders should be pointing people towards the idea of empowering the citizenry, along with doing all they can to strengthen state sponsored security.
We should also be helping the government to connect the dots. Little things like the BHMA that I brought up, are tools that help connect the dots. The Texas Border Watch program is another way to involve people in watching the border, and connecting the dots. Most of all, an alert and informed citizenry can help out the government tremendously, just as long as the government is doing their job in processing that information. It takes an innovative approach to think of ways to involve the citizenry, and if the government was a student of Jundism, they would know that people will support what they help to create. Until then, I will continue to promote self-reliance and the hero in waiting concept.
The other thing that ticks me off on this, is the cycle we go through after events. That government and it’s military and police forces, are way to slow to react to most of these ultra-quick attacks. And when these groups fail at protecting us, the citizenry screams bloody murder, and then the blame game begins. Politics and finger-pointing gets fueled by the media, and then the whole thing turns into a circus. The outcomes usually relate to an increase in government and military size, an increase in safety measures that don’t make sense or don’t really work that well, an increase in the size and complexity of decision making loops, and an increase in taxes to pay for all of that.
So we get more inconvenience and we pay more money to the government, and yet terrorists and criminals are still able to defeat the security measures that we paid for and were sold on by the politicians. I say continue to apply Kaizen to our security measures and defenses, but begin to focus more on empowering the citizenry to get involved. Hell, we could even provide tax breaks to citizens that seek training or reward those that have done good deeds. We must foster the hero in waiting concept, because increasingly, that is the guy or gal that will stop the terrorist, criminal, active shooter, lone wolf, extremist, spy, and super empowered individual in the mad minutes of an attack or a crime. Millions of heroes in waiting throughout the world, are the ones that will increase our odds at defeating those who wish to do harm. We can’t stop all of it, because that is the nature of man, but we can certainly do more to help prevent and stop these acts. –Matt
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The Lesson: Passengers Are Not Helpless
Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009
By Amanda Ripley
Since 2001, airline passengers — regular people without weapons or training — have helped thwart terrorist attacks aboard at least five different commercial airplanes. It happened again on Christmas Day. And as we do each and every time, we miss the point.
Consider the record: First, passengers on United Flight 93 prevented a further attack on Washington on 9/11. Then, three months later, American Airlines passengers wrestled a belligerent, biting Richard Reid to the ground, using their headset cords to restrain him. In 2007, almost a dozen passengers jumped on a gun-wielding hijacker aboard a plane in the Canary Islands. And this past November, passengers rose up against armed hijackers over Somalia. Together, then, a few dozen folks have helped save some 595 lives. {See the top 10 inept terrorist Plots.}
And yet our collective response to this legacy of ass-kicking is puzzling. Each time, we build a slapdash pedestal for the heroes. Then we go back to blaming the government for failing to keep us safe, and the government goes back to treating us like children. This now familiar ritual distracts us from the real lesson, which is that we are not helpless. And since regular people will always be first on the scene of terrorist attacks, we should perhaps prioritize the public’s antiterrorism capability — above and beyond the fancy technology that will never be foolproof.