Tuesday, January 08, 2008
"Be prepared"
While we're all jabbering and yammering about Dixville Notch, playing all the usual Gotcha and How Dare You Say Gotcha and How Dare You Criticize Me For Saying How Dare You and It's Obscene That You Dare To Say How Dare You Criticize Me For Saying How Dare You .....
In a far corner of the world, a dramatic little event shows that humanity still has a chance, even among Mohammedans.
The Maldive Islands, a long chain of little islands near India, with roughly the same ethnic and religious makeup as Pakistan, just gave us a lesson.
An assassin came after the Maldives President with a knife; the president's bodyguards were slow to react, but a Boy Scout named Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim got there first. He grabbed the blade and saved the president's life.
The bodyguards then arrested the assassin. At this point it's not clear whether the assassin was acting for Jihad [because the Maldives president is relatively pro-Western] or just some kind of local rebellion.
Moral of the story: As we focus ever more strongly on de-preparing and idiotizing the people; as we let the 'professionals' do all the jobs; as we allow lawyers to sue ordinary people and Boy Scouts into submission; we forget that problems are usually solved by a prepared (and armed) citizen. Or as George W. Gore would call him, a "vigilante".
Story here. ¶ 2:41 PM
In a far corner of the world, a dramatic little event shows that humanity still has a chance, even among Mohammedans.
The Maldive Islands, a long chain of little islands near India, with roughly the same ethnic and religious makeup as Pakistan, just gave us a lesson.
An assassin came after the Maldives President with a knife; the president's bodyguards were slow to react, but a Boy Scout named Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim got there first. He grabbed the blade and saved the president's life.
The bodyguards then arrested the assassin. At this point it's not clear whether the assassin was acting for Jihad [because the Maldives president is relatively pro-Western] or just some kind of local rebellion.
Moral of the story: As we focus ever more strongly on de-preparing and idiotizing the people; as we let the 'professionals' do all the jobs; as we allow lawyers to sue ordinary people and Boy Scouts into submission; we forget that problems are usually solved by a prepared (and armed) citizen. Or as George W. Gore would call him, a "vigilante".
Story here. ¶ 2:41 PM
