Terror

So a 23 year old man from a wealthy family got on a plane. He had explosive material concealed in his underwear. After igniting the material, he came within seconds of detonating the explosive before being stopped by a fellow passenger, as flight attendants rushed to extinguish the flames.

Let's all send out a hearty thanks to the passenger and flight attendants whose good and quick thinking helped to avert what could have been a terrible tragedy. Let's be grateful for the hundreds of lives saved aboard that plane. Let's ask ourselves what went wrong with our system that allowed that man (who was already on a terror watch list) to get on that plane. Let's fix that.

Then let's take a deep breath and remember how terrorism works. It's doesn't work through the actual destruction - the loss of lives would have been terrible if this act had been "successful", but however devastating to the individuals, families and communities involved, the nation would have remained intact. The goal of terrorism is... to terrify. That's how they win - when they make us more afraid of them than we are proud of our own values.

Personally, I'm not afraid. And there's nothing they can do to me that would make me surrender my contempt for the values of these jerks. So no, I would not advocate racial or religious profiling, no I don't believe in imprisonment without trial, no I would not be willing to let my government torture on my behalf, and no I will not advocate the burder of innocent civilians for my own protection.

No amount of terror can turn me into a terrorist.