As we get ready for what is hoped to be a glorious and incident free Fourth of July weekend, I can't help but wonder if most of our country is aware of or concerned with the war that continues around us. I traveled out to Boston last weekend and found disturbing examples of this failure to recognize the dangerous circumstances we are facing.
Airport security continues to be a joke. On my flight out a sixty year old couple was randomly picked for the thorough search at the gate. On the way back it was a sixteen year old girl. In our desire to avoid profiling and not offend we are wasting our resources and adding inconvenience to ordinary travelers the airlines desperately need to be flying right now. Even if security won't do it you damn well better believe that I profiled every passenger I could on my flights. Along those lines I also did not detect the same spirit of "we're all in this together" among the passengers that I have experienced on other flights post 9/11. People seemed more involved in their own petty concerns then thinking about what would happen if the worst came to pass. Call me paranoid if you will but I'm looking around the plane on the flight figuring out who will be with me if we have to take action. Unfortunately I did not get the sense that there would be a lot of takers.
Some jackass running for governor in Mass has ads where he says that his number one priority is prescription drug coverage for seniors. Your number one priority? How about trying to protect the citizens of your state from being attacked? How about working to make sure that the airport that the 9/11 terrorists used is safe and secure? How about looking into the large number of illegal immigrants in your state from Muslim countries? Here in Minnesota the Public Safety Commissioner is trying to make it so that all non US citizens in the state who are here on visas have the expiration date on their drivers license or state ID. Sounds reasonable right? Not to the immigration activist groups who are screaming bloody murder and comparing the action to Nazi Germany or the USSR.
For a while after 9/11 it appeared as if there was some hope that we could get past the ridiculous political correctness and delusional fear of government and be able to clear the way for real progress against those who threaten our freedom. Outside the US we have done a decent job in Afghanistan and elsewhere of disrupting Al Qaeda and limiting their effectiveness. But there are literally thousands of Muslims in the US (often illegally) from other countries with connections to radical Islam whose whereabouts and activities we know little or nothing about. We won't ever be safe until these individuals and groups are accounted for and if necessary acted upon. If you're here illegally why are questions even raised? Next flight out, you're on it with a one way ticket.
But as I mentioned earlier it seems that for the most part Americans are going about their lives as if 9/11 never happened and so aren't demanding the changes that would be necessary to secure our country. There is no doubt to me that we are at war and still in a very perilous state of danger. I just wonder what has to happen before the majority of our citizens recognize this as well.
Have a great Fourth of July.
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