Sunday, April 21, 2013

Land of the free. Home of the brave.

This is a little rant, but mainly it is a rave. Pro-America. 

While watching the "news"(1) coverage this week, a commentator wanted to remind his viewers that sadly, bombings like the one that struck Boston happen in some parts of the world daily, and with worse outcomes. The insinuation insult was that though horrific here, we were lucky considering.

Um, no. 

We live in the United States. The reason things like this don't happen here (as often) is no accident. It is by design. 

In the immediate aftermath, we all started to talk about it. We have an existing infrastructure of media that anyone can freely communicate on. No censorship. We were able to talk about who those guys might be. Where they might be found. An exchange of information. People were not afraid that if they talked there would be repercussions. The bombers (2) even used outlets of expression themselves that helped give us an idea of who they were, and what they might be capable of. Land of the free. 

It took us a work-week to wrap this thing up. We went out and found those men and started to implement justice. I say we, even though it was the federal and local law enforcement who did it. They were out there, when they knew things were dangerous, searching house to house on a man hunt. Bringing peace to the streets. Home of the brave. 

And that is why we are "lucky" enough to live in a part of the world where this doesn't happen daily. We are not ungrateful, but I am certainly not going to insult this country by comparing it to those nations that can't even come close to offering what our freedoms do. 

(1) The quotes are because until journalism regains some of it's lost integrity, I can't pretend they are to be trusted. 

(2) Stop calling them "suspects" now. They admitted to it themselves. They can be called bombers. That's what they did & who they are.