Tag: terrorism

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national politics & policies

Deep Thinker Kerry

John Kerry, Charlie Hebdo, Paris Attack, terrorism, Common Sense, Illustration

Comparing Friday’s horrific shootings by Islamist terrorists to the events of last January, one-​time presidential candidate John Kerry noted that there is “something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo… . There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘OK, they’re really angry because of this and that.’ This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve [sic] one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for.”

Yes, Kerry pulled himself out of the fire pretty fast, but, even if he earnestly believes that (as Reason characterized it) “killing cartoonists is less appalling than killing concertgoers,” this was a thought better left unexpressed.

What could Kerry have been thinking?

Here’s a guess: John Kerry sees himself as a reasonable man. Reasonable men try to understand things. And in the course of trying to understand things, a reasonable man will likely explore all sorts of ideas, make uncomfortable comparisons, follow challenging arguments wherever they lead.

But Mr. Kerry does have a job: Secretary of State. This makes him a key mouthpiece for the United States of America … to the world, and about world events.

A Secretary of State should know that standing up for rights is his public duty. It is not spinning theories about motivation that could ominously pass as justification for slaughtering some folks but not others.

His statement may betray him mid-​thought, but hey: “everything we stand for” includes free speech and the press.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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John Kerry, Charlie Hebdo, Paris Attack, terrorism, Common Sense, Illustration

 

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom responsibility

Heroism for Everybody

self defense, gun, responsibility, terrorism, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Liberty is achieved, when it is achieved, at a price. Vigilance.

And this isn’t just an inspiring political message. It’s practical advice for extraordinary circumstances.

What’s the best thing to do if you meet a mass murderer on a rampage, or a terrorist on his mission? It may not be to merely call 911. As one counterterrorism consultant puts it, “We are conditioned to dial 911 and wait, but, in the case of an active shooter, that does not work.”

This conflict expert, Alon Stivi, went on to explain that “[m]ost casualties occur within the first ten or fifteen minutes, and police response usually is too late.”

And speaking of 911, remember that on 9/​11/​2001, the most successful anti-​terrorist effort was by the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.

That was heroism. It cost them their lives, but they accomplished something in that they saved lives, too.

Some people don’t like bringing this up for fear of, well, hurting some feelings. But Ari Armstrong has an answer for this:

If we avoid serious discussions about self-​defense and survival tactics in cases of intended mass murder out of fear that such discussions are somehow insensitive to victims of past attacks, all we accomplish is to ensure that more people will be murdered in possible future attacks.

There is a reason we should keep ourselves fit, and alert. Who knows when we may be called upon, by circumstance, to defend not only ourselves and our loved ones, but our way of life?

Sure, this “call” is made by the unjust. But we, the just, should answer anyway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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self defense, gun, responsibility, terrorism, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

 

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Common Sense crime and punishment education and schooling folly general freedom national politics & policies

Another Leaf Out of Gov’t’s Playbook

Zero Tolerance, schools, hysteria

Could government be a suck-​hole for intelligence? Could one’s proximity to government reduce one’s IQ?

America’s public (read: government) schools too often serve as Wisdom-​Free Zones.

The Ahmed Mohamed story shocked a lot of people. A kid with a clock was mistaken for a terrorist with a bomb and the school and local police threw reason and procedure and everything else out the window. But no one should be shocked. Every week, maybe every day, news creeps out of America’s “common schools” to prove, once again, that its administrators and teachers seem to be deficient in common sense.

When I wrote about Ahmed’s timepiece yesterday, I mentioned several examples of public school hysteria over fictitious, symbolic, or non-​existent weapons. Such stories are Old Faithfuls here at Common Sense. But one case I haven’t written about* is the six-​month-​old tale of the Bedford County, Virginia, lad who was expelled from school for possession of a marijuana leaf.

The police dropped the drug case upon testing the leaf in evidence. It was not Cannabis sativa but Acer palmatum, the Japanese maple leaf, a harmless shrub.

Still, the school stuck to the year-​long suspension, wouldn’t let up. Zero tolerance.

Now, the 11-​year-​old boy had supposedly boasted about having marijuana. And schools do have rules against “look-​alike” drugs. I just wonder why the student received zero due process and how we expect youngsters to grow up in a world without even a tidbit of tolerance.

This dysfunction is not racism or fear or Islamophobia, as some claim in the Ahmed case.

It’s just the inflexible witlessness of those with too much unchecked authority.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Coming, as it did, immediately on the heels of the infamous Pop Gun Tart insanity.…

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Zero Tolerance, schools, hysteria

 

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Common Sense folly general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

Case Closed … But Ticking

Ahmed, clock, terrorism, terrorist, alarm, hysteria, collage, photomontage, illustration, political, chicken little, fear

Irving, Texas, authorities — I use that term loosely — announced yesterday that the case has been closed. Over. Finito. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

What case? That of the 14-​year-​old clock-​maker assumed to be a potential bomb-making/let’s‑err-on-the-side-of-panic terrorist.

Perhaps it didn’t help that the youngster had the wrong last name: Mohamed. Or that his family had immigrated from Sudan.

Ahmed loves to tinker. On Monday, he brought one project, a clock, to school hoping to impress his engineering teacher. His teacher mistook the clock for an improvised bomb, and told Ahmed not to show it to anyone. When the clock’s alarm went off later, his English teacher took the clock and told him to pick it up after school.

Later, the principal pulled Ahmed out of class. Five policemen then interrogated the lad, eventually handcuffing and marching him to juvenile detention.

A police spokesman admitted there was never any threat made. And, of course, no bomb. Ahmed’s engineering teacher clearly wasn’t scared. Yet, this 14-​year-​old was still treated like a … terrorist.

Before being released.

Some charge this is a case of obvious bias against this student’s race or religion. Maybe that’s why even Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for the student and why President Obama invited Ahmed to bring his clock to the White House.

Though prejudice may be part of this story, I doubt it’s the main issue. Many students not named Mohamed have been treated similarly — for bringing a butter knife to cut an apple at lunch, or gnawing a PBJ sandwich into the shape of a gun, or (horrors!) “shooting” pointed fingers at classmates.

Public school’s zero-​judgment zero-​tolerance is equal opportunity insanity.

Not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Ahmed, clock, terrorism, terrorist, alarm, hysteria, collage, photomontage, illustration, political, chicken little, fear

 

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crime and punishment national politics & policies too much government

Armed Americans

Terror Warnings

Scared? “July 4 terrorist attack on U.S. soil a legitimate threat, officials warn” — headlines the Washington Times.

Scared now?

Last weekend on Fox News Sunday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R‑Tx.) expressed his extreme concern that “Syrian and ISIS recruiters can use the Internet at lightning speeds to recruit followers in the United States … and then activate them to do whatever they want to do. Whether it’s military installations, law enforcement or possibly a Fourth of July event parade.”

Michael Morell, former CIA deputy director, told CBS This Morning, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the weekend in the United States. That’s how serious this is.”

In the last three weeks, the FBI has arrested ten U.S. citizens allegedly plotting attacks here — in solidarity with the Islamic State.

Just a week ago, I suggested we dump the Department of Homeland Security and start anew, because the DHS bureaucracy is hardly the best way to organize government to stop terrorist attacks.

Yet, no matter how well organized, government cannot possibly stop every act of violence.

While contemplating the Independence Day prospect of lone-​wolf lunatics or homicidal decapitators and suicide bombers organized “at lightning speeds,” a thought came to mind: We had better depend on ourselves.

If those who will heed “the siren calls” of the Islamic State do get past Homeland Security and our alphabet quilt of security agencies, let’s do everything we can to make certain they still have to face us, armed Americans.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Terror Warnings

 

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folly general freedom government transparency national politics & policies too much government

Safety, Savings and Symbolism

NSA Hydra

How can the U. S. save $2.5 billion a year, reduce the federal workforce by 4,000 hires, and engage in a symbolic act of undoubted patriotism, all at the same time?

Get rid of the Department of Homeland Security.

Matt A. Mayer, a former DHS employee who claims to have “written more on DHS than just about anyone,” writes in Reason that dismantling DHS would increase co-​ordination and decrease inefficiencies.

Since DHS was put in place, in 2003, to increase governmental co-​ordination in the face of terrorist threats, Mayer’s charge that it serves the opposite cause should … give us pause.

Establishing the DHS didn’t get rid of turf wars. Why would it? It increased the turf rather than merely reroute chains of communication and command. All other agencies still exist. Extra turf exacerbates co-​ordination difficulty.

And then there’s what state and local law enforcement faces: “the multi-​headed hydra.” The federal operation remains fragmented, which “only ensures that key items will fall through the cracks between these departments, whose personnel spend far too much time fighting each other for primacy than they should. Our enemies couldn’t ask for a more fertile environment within which to attack us.”

I added the italics, for emphasis.

Ever since Jimmy Carter ran for the presidency on consolidating bureaucratic departments in the nation’s capital, but delivered, instead, new departments, the “logic” of adding new bureaucracies onto old has proven to be the “easy answer” for insiders. But a transparent failure, for everyone else.

So, start over. Get rid of the inefficient monster.

And take heart: republics don’t have “homelands”; empires do. Let’s stop playing the wrong game.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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NSA Hydra