The Terrorists Won

They’re “terrorists.” It’s not a term that was created in a vacuum.

What do they want? They want us to be frightened and scared – terrified.

How do they win? By making us change the way we live our lives because we’re frightened and scared all of the time – terrified.

We’ve spent billions of dollars a year on the TSA and Homeland Security, standing in line for hours every time we get on a plane. How many terrorists has that caught in fifteen and a half years?

Zero.

Now the “patriots” have taken control of the government and they’re going to get tough. They’re going to bring the terrorists to their knees. the Trumpencritter had a super double-secret plan that would do it in thirty days!

It’s now day fifty-six and what are we doing? We’re running. We’re cowering. We’re panicking. We’re overreacting. We’re freaking out.

Out of nowhere is coming that word that Homeland Security and the TSA have ordered that no one on any flight from thirteen Middle Eastern countries will be allowed to fly with any electronic device other than a cell phone or a required medical device.

No laptops. No Kindles. No handheld game consoles. No cameras. (Okay, that last one really hits home. I can’t remember the last time I got on a plane and didn’t fight for a window seat just so I could take pictures.)

Why are we doing this? They won’t say. It’s for security. It’s for our own protection. We need to trust them.

Bullshit.

We have turned into a country and a society that is so incredibly risk averse, so cowardly, so scared, so terrorized that we’ll go to any extreme at the drop of a hat and strip away privacy, rights, and all common sense in a blind panic to be safe at any cost. We jump at shadows, we see terrorist threats where there are none, and we overreact and panic first before not bothering to ask questions later.

The terrorists have won. As long as we choose to live in terror like this instead of growing a spine, sucking it up, and getting on with our lives, the terrorists will continue to win.

That’s the thing about terrorism. The terrorists don’t do it to us, they just give us an excuse to do it to ourselves. If we choose to tell them to fuck off, eat shit, and die while we get on with our lives, we win. If we jump at every made up boogie man and shadow and shred our society while doing it, they win.

The terrorists have won today.

Will we let them win again tomorrow?