The Fear!

I am sick and tired of living in fear here in the United States. This culture this idea that we are always vulnerable always at risk to be attacked or for mass chaos to be afoot at any moment. 

It seems to me to be more of a prison than actual freedom. It seems to me that if the ideology of terror is what we are fighting than subway security brandishing rifles is going to do little to deter it. If we believe that this ideology has traveled thousands of miles to reach the American shores do we really believe that the subway police man is going to stop it? Let us think about it in this context. If the American marines are right now fighting the ideology of terrorism with full automatic assault rifles and the best technology the United States armed forces can muster and yet the ideology of terrorism is not deterred from attacking them in fortified bases why do we Americans think that the NYPD can deter terrorism? 

What is being deterred is not terrorism but our liberties that we are watching being intimidated away. The police patrol our streets with fully automatic weapon and we welcome it as protection of our freedoms! Is this how we in the United States fight ideas, with weapons? Further I am tired of living in fear having to be on the guard for this ethnicity and that. What I find ironic about the elevated alert nature is that the national news media warns us of threats from three men from Pakistan. Now I should wonder exactly how they would warn us of a threat from three Americans. Would the news media have us weary of white men? I think not. The news media feeds into our fears by giving us a specter to chase. The American news media knows full well that the Average American cannot just by looking tell the difference between what is known as an Arab, a person from the larger middle east, and someone from India. Now thats because of America's cultural ignorance we have effectively cast suspicion on an entire population and religion. Does that make us safer? Does suspecting our fellow Americans make us safer? What have we given up just so that we can feel safer? What do we now lack in the name of safety?

These things, these police, this intimidation does not fight the ideology of terrorism. There are better ways to fight the idea and practice that is terrorism. However putting  the citizens of America in a constant state of fear by having the police patrolling out streets as if it was a war zone is not the way to go about it. Is this what we have to look forward to when the government feels like it is being threatened? Is this what the government does in the name of our protection. We must understand that no matter how many police sat at the base of the twin towers September 11th would have still took place. It is also true that since that time the planned attacks have been thwarted not due to the police but to civilians. Now one could say that it is because of the United States citizens alerted senses that such attacks have been thwarted. Never mind that the most credible and closest attack was thwarted by a European. The most absurd assumption on the part of the government is that someone who subscribes to the terrorist ideology will actually be de moralized from carrying out a suicide attack despite having gone to great lengths to plan and carry out such an attack. Have not the so called terrorist blown themselves up well before the planned target if it looked as if the police where close to neutralizing him or her? 

I ask sincerely will this culture of fear dissipate or will we forever fear the boogiemen from the imagination of the United States that can only be fought with more money and more personal restrictions.