Boston Events

I've been reluctant to chime in about the events in Boston -until now. First of all, my heart goes out to all those who suffered and are suffering. Boston is the closest really big city to me and I've connections to the city.

There was a lot of security in Boston before the bombing: Lot's of police, dogs, the whole security dance and shuffle. In spite of that the bombs went off. False flag operation, some have said. How else could the bombers have gone on undiscovered?

It's not all that hard to imagine. People give more credit to the Police State than it deserves. Security apparatus does Okay when it has a specific threat for a specific time and place. Resources are concentrated, men are on alert. When the command is to “guard the City” there's only so much they can do. The threat is too diffuse. Now imagine that instead of bombs going off at the marathon they went off inside a couple of Boston's tunnels. People would be screaming about all the city's resources spent on the race, leaving the rest of the city unprotected. The vast majority of the time, nobody's doing anything serious. Cops and security go through the motions.

After the bombs, a good chunk of the greater Boston area was essentially under martial law. All the big guns came in. All the high tech toys were on displace: facial recognition scanners, armored vehicles, militarized police, actual military, and even helicopters with thermal imagery. It reminded me of that that old joke: there we were, two against a thousand, the toughest pair we ever fought.

Yes, just two guys brought a major city to a complete halt. With that kind of security effectiveness, how many people would it take to shut down the whole country? Two hundred? Obviously governments cannot afford to respond to every threat the way they responded in Boston.

Then in a shootout, one manages to drive right through the roadblocks and disappear for a time. They only found him because some guy went to check on his beloved boat.

Those who expect the world to be completely safe will be disappointed. It's can't be done. Life and reality doesn't work that way. It also shows that America is long long way from becoming the total police state they think it is. Tyrants don't have the resources to pull it off.

Police are not our best protection. A civil society is. It's a lot easier to add a few more people in uniform than to figure out how to make society better but it's our day to day tolerance and goodness that keeps us functioning. Without that, there's not enough cops in the world to make up the lack.



-Sixbears