An Insecure Nation
About five years ago my mother had bought a few books off of an independent online bookstore. A few days after her purchases someone had stolen her credit card number and hacked into her bank account taking a few thousand dollars out for a new flat screen or something. Unfortunately for my mom, she had been duped.
I clearly remember listening to her talk on the phone with the bank consultant shortly after she had realized that money was missing. Generally a calm person, she mutated into a parakeet, squawking at the innocent teller until the problem was resolved. Now, at this time my mother knew the bank would cover her losses. It wasn’t the money or the customer service she was concerned about, it was the livelihood of her bank account number, which just so happens to be linked to her name, which just so happens to be linked to her address, and to her social security number, and so on. The state of my mother’s identity was at stake, she felt vulnerable, insecure.
But her true colors only came out when she felt her security at stake, and security is something in which we are all promised as citizens (or visitors) of the United States. Unfortunately the future of national security cannot be predicted, thus making this promise empty. We can take precautions or overanalyze situations, but for the most part security is there just to make us feel better about living.
Over winter break there was a failed terror attack on Northwest flight 253 coming back from Amsterdam. The attack brought about a new heightened sense of security within the states and the National Threat Advisory rose from green to orange.
Once the media cools off on this failed terrorist attack, the security of the nation will magically turn green again by one click of a mouse.
Is it this easy to for the government to install fear in us through colors and then claim security again by having some guy in the back room that eats doughnuts and occasionally changes the level of national security? Now, I understand that we cannot predict when something terrible is going to happen, this is why the security of the nation cannot be coded in color.
Thinking about my mother’s dilemma as well as homeland security’s, there are many problems with the way security is viewed as a whole. We see problems that affect us daily, yet take no action to prevent these problems until it actually occurs. My mom never gave identity fraud a thought until she realized that some guy could have been cruising his way down to South America in a two hundred foot yacht. The government injects steroids into national security after a recent terrorist attack until time passes by and the nation slowly forgets, thus turning back to threat level “green.”
History is a tool for present and future progress. With a clear and concise understanding of what has happened in the past we can better the future. Security should always be considered in personal life as well as on a broader national scale. I am not saying you should go out to your local gun depot and buy a brand new shotgun, but simply we must use knowledge of history to make living life better.
Violence and theft can not always be predicted or prevented, but history will make us aware, and if that’s the least we have, it is better than trying to understand what color the nation is today.
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=1168
Posted by Pat Mahoney
on Feb 4, 2010 Filed under College.
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