A hacker and Live Free or Die Hard hero John McClane have narrowly averted another incendiary assault by unseen bad guys. As they pick their way through the rubble, the overwhelmed hacker echoes Princess Leia's query of Han Solo:
Do you have a plan?
Yeah, kill all of them and rescue my daughter.
I meant "plan" as in how we do it.
I wish that didn't sound so familiar.
*****
London police foiled a pair of planned car bomb attacks this week, almost two years after suicide bombers attacked the London transit system and killed 52 people, and a second bombing attempt failed.
Trying to capture the plotters and avert further attacks back then, British authorities mistakenly tracked a Brazilian electrician to the underground and shot him without apparent provocation. The final police report, which took well over a year to be made public, revealed that Jean Charles de Menezes was restrained by an officer as he was shot seven times in the head at point-blank range.
Early reports of his acting suspiciously were not upheld by the investigation. Details from eyewitness accounts used to justify the brutal killing turned out not to be true. People at the scene were confused, yet bloggers continents away broke it down in real time as if they were dealing with gospel.
In the cartoon world of Die Hard, the good guys always manage to be in the right place — except when a loved one is about to be taken hostage. They operate without official oversight or backup. They shoot straight and shake off wounds. They miraculously connect with the one other person in the world who can help them. They are modest yet determined in discharging grave responsibilities. They might make mistakes but they get the job done.
Putting yourself on the line as the righteous and effective defender of all that is good in America is noble, of course, but for those not actually in the military or law enforcement, it's mainly an appealing fantasy. The farther you are from actual danger and real fighting, the easier it is to see yourself as John McClane or Captain America.
I do not oppose citizens' rights to bear arms; I just question the necessity of putting guns on the street in the hands of people with less training, less physical conditioning and a hell of a lot fewer special effects than your average John McClane.
*****
A while back, I got into a contretemps with some bloggers who had a different interpretation of events surrounding the shooting of an off-duty cop by a conceal & carry permit holder during a road-rage incident three weeks ago. My interest in that event, as in the de Menezes shooting, was not to show I had the correct interpretation, but to note how our searches for the "truth" are influenced by our own beliefs, experiences and ideologies. With cops in the family, I'm inclined to look a little harder at the guy who shoots a cop. A responsible conceal & carry advocate who distrusts the media and the government is a bit more likely to look for exculpatory evidence favoring the shooter.
That report, too, is slow in coming, leaving us all time for speculation.
Joel Rosenberg, a firearms safety trainer and gun rights advocate, has published the 911 transcripts from calls related to the shooting. Ambiguous, as far as I'm concerned, but highlighting why a thorough investigation is needed.
*****
I'm going out on a limb here... None of us will single-handedly save American life as we know it, or even rescue our daughter from violent hostage takers. We will not foil a rape, halt a bank robbery or help authorities outwit hijackers. We will not stop a terrorist from blowing up a night club.
This is not because we are cowardly or don't care. It's not even because we lack the requisite skills.
We simply won't get the opportunity.
If we do get the opportunity to save a life, it likely will be because we know CPR and first aid, think to use our cell phone, and have maintained a level of fitness that allows us to function mentally and physically in a high-stress situation.
Or more likely, we will be at work and a report will come to us that says some people exhibit a high rate of mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer associated with asbestos. We will not cut the funding for more study. We will not table a new report that shows a growing incidence of the disease. We will not suppress science and fire those who bring dangerous issues to public attention.
However, this kind of heroic behavior is apparently quite difficult and the circumstances are far too nuanced for quick and decisive action. But shooting brown people? Let's roll!
*****
One of our regular rides takes us past a small, charming stucco church near Lake Minnetonka, the New Thought Church of Religious Science. We'd think of stopping to investigate the strange name, but never did, and now it's too late.
The church building is now under new ownership.
Oh, it's still a church. A choir could be heard practicing, and a man dressed like a hotel doorman deliberately swept the front walk in preparation for the morning's service. In fact, this was more life than we'd ever seen there.
On my return, I checked out the church. The original New Thought denomination grew out of the writings and "medical" practice of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who also influenced Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science.
Quimby believed reason could erase ailments. It certainly allowed him to accept the prospect of death, which he simply considered to be "the change." On his deathbed, he anticipated W.C. Fields:
I am
perfectly willing for the change myself, but I know you all will feel
badly, and think I am dead; but I know that I shall be right here with
you, just as I always have been. I do not dread the change any more
than if I were going on a trip to Philadelphia.
The new owners of the little church? Why, it's Mac Hammond's Living Word Ministry, bring the prosperity gospel to the Lake People.
*****
Like any good actor, though, non-presidential non-candidate Fred Thompson has got our backs.
We were just talking earlier,
and I remember the figure that stuck out to me -- in the year 2005, we
apprehended over 1,000 folks that originally has come from Cuba. If they're coming from Cuba,
where else are they coming from? And I
don't imagine they're coming here to bring greetings from Castro.
We're living in the era of the suitcase bomb. We can't
be talking seriously about national security while that's going on.
Of course! The Cubans! They've been playing us all along!
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