These people have nothing to do with me. They are flight safety statistics. I live with the fact, the fact, that all participation in the real world entails risk. I expect to see things like this happen given the 1000s of flights which occur each day. I know I won’t be on a flight with a bomb, ever. Neither will anyone reading this post., I promise. And you all know it.

I do not need to be protected. I do not need to be comforted or made to feel secure. I am secure.

What happened to the passengers on that Detroit flight must have been frightening for them. I repeat, for “them”. Not me. And nothing has changed.

The American people can no longer tell the difference between what happens on TV and the reality of how things that do happen to them or will happen to them in the real-life physical 3-dimensional world.

People today over-identify with things on TV and on the Internet. It’s become a disease, a kind of mental illness, an hysteria. People, please calm down. It’s not “your” football team that won the game. You didn’t win American Idol when your favorite got picked (stop crying you look ridiculous). You weren’t on that Detroit flight.

The trauma of the event belong to the people on that plane and their loved ones. No one else. We should be aware of their suffering and acknowledge it with quiet respect and deep gratitude that it was not us.

Shit happens to people, period.

People sit their on their fat ass and “participate” in victories they watch on TV. After reloading the feed bowl, they return to their couch and wait (intentionally) for the chance to be “traumatized” by dangers and threats suffered by strangers at a safe distance.

The American people over-identify with every scary thing they see on TV and demand to be protected from it. Its disgusting. Have we learned nothing about ourselves in the last 20 years?

The worst part of it all is how certain things, like 9-11 cross the line into abomination. I am repulsed by the immoral grieving for ourselves, for the ghastly way we consider it “our” national loss. We are so busy remembering to “never forget” that we don’t have time to talk about or remember the victim’s families. Who ever talks abouts the rescue people who are now suffering from illnesses because they were trying to save people? Nobody. These are the victims, not you and i.

The overt appropriation of other people’s misfortune so that we can be upset, so that our deadened nerves and soft minds can experience a feeling, any feeling, is a national shame. I could puke. When the audience watches all these large nationally televised tragedies (ususally as entertainment or distraction, mind you, if we’re honest) they forget that the loss belongs to other people, not themselves.

It’s not empathy when it becomes the observer’s trauma. It’s psychic cannibalism.

I am not afraid of flying. I do not need federal protection. Let the TSA go. Let me board my flight, with my family and friends saying goodbye to me at the gate, like I used to. Leave me alone. Do not scan me. Do not question me. I am not a criminal. Here’s a tip for carrying my bags, now be on your way.

I don’t fear terrorism. I fear the people fighting terrorism “on my behalf”. Thanks, but no thanks.

The odds of me being the Twin Towers on 9-11 or on a flight with a bomb were astronomical and remain so. If the billions of dollars and proliferation of security agencies have meant anything at all, the odds should actually be less at this moment.

ENOUGH ALREADY.

There is no danger for me and the Detroit incident has not changed that. Also, if I were to pretend I sincerely felt something for those people when I don’t I would be lieing. If I felt anything other than reserved regret and passing concern, I would have lost perspective and deserving the “protection” I received for that sloppy way of living my life.

Ya, you miss the point. We’re ALL CIA cyborgs here. This is where we gets our secret orders. But you gots to know the code. Dig?

Oh, oops. You not one of us? Hmm. Okay. Nevermind.

I think the point is that government has a propensity to be taken over by Big business (a distinction needs to be made from small to mid-size businesses who do not have access to the state and so have to compete freely). I can see how Libertarians can reach a conclusion that any authority is bad. Just substitute King for republic or democracy. Some have argued that a “GOOD” king works. And this is true, but rare and can lead to a tyrant. So the argument that a good government would work and could is true but can and often does lead to oligarchical states. I guess the point here is that yes a limited government works best, meaning limits need to be placed on what government, a monarchy, a republic, or a democracy can do for this to work. On the other hand, they are all susceptible to corruption or control of elites and this often happens (I believe Polybius discussed this). The problem comes in that to limit the bad that governments can do, you must limit the good as well. Eventually, elites can always lessen the limits as folks want the government to do good for them.

on the Mass vote

SCHULTZ (23:02): I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I’d try to vote 10 times. I don’t know if they’d let me or not, but I’d try to. Yeah, that’s right. I’d cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. ‘Cause that’s exactly what they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3j9fpTKkk

Ed Shultz the Ying of Rush Limbaughs Yang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC59K76LGK4

SCHULTZ (08:12): So Mika starts looking at her Blackberry and so does Scarborough and obviously the White House is texting them or emailing them or whatever and they didn’t like the show. Because Arianna had been on there, I’m on there, Howard Dean had been on there and they wanted some balance.

Now think about that – here’s the White House getting in contact with ‘Morning Joe’ because they’re afraid there’s too many lefties on the air! Now if that’s not sensitivity at its highest level, I don’t know what is! I told ya a few days ago they had rabbit ears! They don’t like anything that’s being said right now, they’re getting beat up!