…or Massachusetts and the surrounding states? …or the whole country?
I logged into Facebook last Friday evening as I rode the train home from downtown San Diego. I was thrilled to see that the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was apprehended. Facebook friends were posting nice tributes to the Boston PD on their status updates. I was even chastised by a progressive friend for stating on my update that “Friday was a great day in downtown San Diego but, more importantly, we funded a loan for a Navy veteran.”. He thought I should have been using Facebook to celebrate the Boston PD’s heroic police work.
I really didn’t know what had happened so I played along. I’m not immune to the need for social acceptance. I wanted to be on Facebook for the duration of my train ride so I hit some “Like” buttons on the celebratory posts– it was the online equivalent of chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” when you’re not quite sure why you’re chanting.
Saturday morning, I learned that Governor Deval Patrick had locked down the Greater Boston area. Citizens were confined to their quarters while the police searched house-to-house, dressed in full combat gear, with their urban assault vehicles. The film maker (in the linked video) said “this is what we woke up to Friday morning“. Free citizens were literally confined to the house in which they awoke…even if it wasn’t their residence. Suddenly, the echoes of “U-S-A! U-S-A! ” in my head were haunting me. I rationalized this extreme action as a necessary act of security and settled in to enjoy my weekend…
until I found out that….
The lock down didn’t catch the suspect. An aware citizen, having a smoke AFTER the lock down was lifted did. But that’s not all…
Was every Bostonian confined to quarters? Not if you were a donut baker:
Law enforcement asked the chain to keep some restaurants open in locked-down communities to provide hot coffee and food to police and other emergency workers, including in Watertown, the focus of the search for the bombing suspect. Dunkin’ is providing its products to them for free.
“At the direction of authorities, select Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the Boston area are open to take care of needs of law enforcement and first responders,” spokeswoman Lindsay Harrington explained via email. “We are encouraging our guests to state home today and abide by the lockdown, per the Governor’s recommendation.”
The crisis was so serious that hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth was destroyed but coffee slingers and donut bakers were free to serve the FBI and Boston PD…so safety wasn’t really an issue. More importantly, the lock down sent a message to the world that Americans can be cowed. Read what Israeli military journalist and IDF veteran Yaakov Katz wrote:
Yes, on Friday there was a 19-year-old terrorist on the loose, but did that mean that nearly 5 million people needed to stay locked inside their homes? Did it warrant the complete suspension of public transportation, of taxis, of Amtrak trains between Boston and the rest of the East Coast? The postponement of the Red Sox-Royals game, the Bruins-Penguins game? I’m not sure.
Also, it was strange when considering that from Monday – when the bombings took place – until Friday, there were two terrorists on the loose and there was no consideration of a lockdown.
Now, with one terrorist still free there is a lockdown? Shouldn’t the opposite have happened? But even ignoring the operational considerations, there is symbolism when one of the US’s largest cities paralyzes itself in face of terrorism.
While this would be an excellent opportunity to explain how an armed citizenry would not have to go into hiding, I won’t do that. Rather I’ll ask you to calibrate the efficacy of the lock down with the results. I’ll ask you to consider just how much freedom you’re willing to sacrifice for “security” (or, in this case. the false sense thereof). Nobody was forced to leave their homes, Tuesday through Thursday, and nothing happened to those who chose to shop or work. But a large number of Bostonians were forced to stay in their homes,, all day on Friday…and it still didn’t produce the result that one aware citizen did.
Big government always grows in a crisis be it the welfare state in a recession or the security state in a manhunt. In Goldwater’s West, the sheriff called upon the citizens to join a posse. In modern day America, the sheriff calls up the National Guard, confines the citizenry to quarters, and raises their taxes.
It makes me wonder just how far big government can expand.