At least for now.
We’re 48 hours out from the bombings and things are… different. It isn’t just the obvious police presence or the national guard people in uniform everywhere. Things are different. Yesterday everything was eerily calm, almost like the afternoon of 9/11 when all flights were grounded and nobody knew what was going on, except that yesterday there were helicopters in the air overhead and we were all waiting.
Waiting for news of who else was going to die. Waiting to hear from that last person or two that we hadn’t yet heard from. Waiting for news from the police, the feds, the various hospitals. Waiting. It was like life in suspended animation.
We were going to work and going through the motions, but everyone was asking the same thing, “Should we be doing this?” “Is this appropriate?” “What is the right thing to do now?”
Nobody has an answer for that. There is no single answer when there is a 15 block long scar in the middle of your city that was carved out by a coward with bombs, a bone to pick with humanity, a need to see his human fears and frailty writ large on the TV, and not enough guts or intelligence to make the change he wants to see from within the system.
Whoever you are, you angry white man, I know you’re probably not reading this. But know this. You picked on the wrong town. I’ve been critical elseweb of Boston’s navel gazing, hyper reactive, and self centered tendencies when it comes to perceived terror threats. You, you toothless cowardly sub human piece of crap? You just provided them with all of the argument they will ever needed to be over concerned that you and your little Tea Partying friends should never be trusted with a weapon or, turns out, pots and pans, again. You just not only killed 3 people and injured and maimed over a hundred more, you just killed your own argument, too.
Say goodbye to your guns, coward. Say goodbye to your freedom, your rallies, and your gas guzzling SUVs. They will find you and they will throw you down a deep, dark hole and you will never be heard from again. Why? Because you’re a terrorist. Just like every guy who’s blown up a building or clinic, shot up a mall, flown a plane into a building, or otherwise tried to make his point by killing people and getting on the news, you’re a terrorist. It doesn’t matter if you’re from New England, you’re still a coward and a criminal and one thing we’re not waiting for is finding you.
The sad part in all of this is that the further erosion or our civil liberties will be the price we’ll all pay because this coward took out his fears and anger on a group of people gathered to celebrate a sporting event. Sure, it’s a sporting event I have my issues with and I have complained about in the past right here in this very space. That’s not the point. The point is that trying to blow up people from all over the world to get yourself on the news so you can then sit at home and watch it played endlessly on loop means that you’re a special kind of sick.
Our new reality should be that these guys don’t get that publicity. The endless news loops of the explosions should stop. We’ve seen them, they’re on the internet if anyone really wants to watch them. Stop playing them, MSM. Just stop, you’re feeding this guy’s ego. Next, when you catch this guy or guys, no names. Call them dumbass #1, dumbass #2, etc. As far as I’m concerned the names that matter are the dead, maimed, and injured. The names that matter the the police, doctors, firefighters, volunteers, and all the heroes who ran toward the blasts to try and help people. The guy who did this? He should remain anonymous, forever. What he wants is notoriety and infamy. Don’t give it to him, he doesn’t even deserve a footnote in history.
Let the new normal be that civil liberties and safety both matter. Let the new normal be that we continue to look out for each other and that we work together to keep each other safe but that we can still enjoy the rights and freedoms guaranteed to us. That, my friends, is Boston Strong.
~Kelly
- Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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