5686271
ESR, whom I did not know was capable of this level of political opportunism, sent a message to several news organizations on Tuesday afternoon subtitled First lessons from the 9/11 attack (note that the American-centric stance extends even to his date format.) In this editorial … and I am finding it difficult to even transcribe this … he advocates arming all airline passengers as a way to prevent terrorism. This bears repeating: according to Mr. Raymond, if you allow any passenger to carry loaded firearms onto a civilian airliner, you will prevent hijackings.
This is a complex editorial, but only in the sense that its audacity, irresponsibility, and insanity vie so closely for superiority that it is difficult to determine which comes out on top. Situation: Armed passengers. Result: Potential hijackers train as crack marksmen, carry semiautomatic pistols and wear Kevlar jackets. They position themselves at various points of the plane and announce the hijacking. They explain that anyone who resists will be shot, and will also cause two children on the aircraft to be shot. Someone resists, is shot, as are a random four-year-old and six-year-old from among the passengers. Someone else tries to resist, gets off a panic shot, punctures a window, and triggers an explosive decompression of the aircraft. Now this is progress.
It “is arguable that the lawmakers who disarmed all the non-terrorists on those four airplanes, leaving them no chance to stop the hijackers, bear part of the moral responsibility for this catastrophe,” claims Raymond. In point of fact, the crash in Pennsylvania suggests that unarmed passengers did succeed in stopping the hijackers; it seems quite likely they would not have been able to do so had the hijackers possessed firearms.
In an excellent bit of satire, one jsm ridicules and shames ESR’s and others’ rants (Thanks to Keith Dawson’s post on Media Grok for the pointer.):
Of course the World Trade Center bombings are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson to us all; a lesson that my political views are correct. Although what is done can never be undone, the fact remains that if the world were organised according to my political views, this tragedy would never have happened … My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events … [We must] not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me.
A response by alprazolam continued the thought, sans satire: “Disturbing people assume that the best response to tragedy is to abandon reason and order. No matter what political differences I may have with the current administration I’m glad that cool heads have prevailed and the U.S. has not erupted into widespread vigilantism.”
Email subscription
