So I'm at the gym in LA last week and of course there is a car chase on the local news. I and the rest of the knuckleheads at the gym sat there transfixed while ten police cars chased a mini-van. Every time they could have cornered it they somehow let the van slip through. They let a situation that could've been stopped in its tracks escalate beyond control. All they had do was run that thing off the road, shoot its tires, anything.
The chase is symbolic of what has happened to this country. We are afraid to act. A shooter walks into a building and starts killing people and the police sit outside monitoring the situation rather then storming the building, consequences be damned. Whether it is because of the fear of lawsuits, the fear of being second-guessed or just fear of failure, it has to be stopped.
That's why it was so heartening to see the Navy Seals take out the pirates. That's what we used to do. Of course, now there are threats of bloodshed and retaliation. Well, next time a ship is taken, that ship has to be blown out of the water. The only thing terrorists understand is dead terrorists.
I'm sure I'm sounding reactionary but enough is enough. We have compromised ourselves and scared ourselves out of doing what is necessary. We sit in fear and live in panic and we pay the price.
Maybe we can start to stop that now. Maybe instead of a five-hour police chase, it can end in five minutes. Wouldn't that be nice?
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Completely with you on the pirate take-down. Maybe they can do a family-friendly movie (like Pirates of the Caribbean) where the colorful scamps get their heads blown off by night-vision-equipped snipers. News alert to Hollywood: real pirates raped and killed women, children, whomever.
As for the country being paralyzed by indecision, the exception seems to be mass killings with guns. It's the politicians that are frozen-in-action.
In his NYT column today ("The American Way")Bob Herbert trots out the horrifying statistics on homicide with guns in the nation.
He concludes "all the expression of horror at the violence and pity for the dead and those who loved them ring hollow in a society that is neither mature nor civilized enough to do anything about it."
Good luck in LA, brutha. Wish I wasn't a gimp still, but I'll get out there sometime.
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