Now that things have settled from that awful week in April 2013, it's time to think again about what happened--and the implications of false beliefs. Boston's reaction is compared to the Texas reaction.
Everybody wrote about explosions and terrorism this past month. I did not. If I seem callous about the Boston Marathon bombings, please forgive me. The coverage has been non-stop, and I worry that important things happening outside of Boston are being ignored by the media in favor of interviews with people who don't know anything. It doesn't seem to change things. The United States Senate (or at least enough of its membership) believes that searching a person's background before they buy a car or Sudafed is legitimate...but background checks for Uzis are just plain anti-American.
And if you don't believe it, yet another terrorist will send Ricin through the mail at you.
[Note: if it's the right to "keep and bear arms," then shouldn't Ricin possession be legal? It's not the right to "keep and bear guns."]
There is one thing that strikes me as near-perfect, though. That is the way that the people of Boston rose up to support the runners. Some were blocked off from their hotels. Many had no flights home, and those on American Airlines may have had to wait yet another day while they figured out how their new merger worked. Suddenly, a large contingent of people started offering their beds, couches...whatever it took...to make sure that participants in the Boston Marathon were cared for.
There was absolutely no reason for them to do this. Doesn't matter. It got done.
I've seen this in New York (9/11) and New Jersey (Superstorm Sandy). The Northeast gets a bad rap as a bunch of liberals, but there's something to be said for people that hold these values. It's not about "my rights." Rather, it's about what's best for the community, the country, the world. Those are the values that won two world wars--not to mention the Civil War. Those are the values that gave votes to such outside groups as slaves...and women.
[Compare that to the people of Steubenville, Ohio. My blog on that is here. The supporting documentation is listed above the blog and also here. That would be a BAD place to have a marathon.]
The most damage from that week didn't come from a Mississippi redneck, and it didn't come from two angry men out of Chechnya. Nope. The biggest killer of the week came from the stereotypical anti-government attitude that runs our country in the red and allows fertilizer plants to go unchecked for 7 years--complete with missing required safety equipment and a missing blast wall.
[Fertilizer...Isn't that what Timothy McVeigh used in the Oklahoma City bombings? Seems like you'd keep an eye on that stuff...]
The federal government didn't want to seem invasive and controlling, so they left the issue to the states. Texas wants to be ultra-super-duper CONSERVATIVE, so they cut budgets and never bothered to check whether the people of West, Texas were safe. It's a great plan...until the whole thing explodes.
Now, state leaders are being called to task through lawsuits and political cartoons. Governor Rick Perry is demanding apologies and searching desperately for a way to blame this on some liberal Democrat. The mantra of Texas Republicans: "It's not my fault!" What didn't happen was meaningful legislation to protect other towns with fertilizer plants. The legislative session has finished; only a special session on redistricting remains.
I think everyone would be amazed at Mr. Perry taking the podium, being genuine, and apologizing...promising to do better henceforth...and working on making people safe. That would throw me for a loop. In the meantime, he gets angry with cartoonists and threatens to veto any budget that doesn't cut taxes.
[Somehow, a tax cut will revive the dead? Didn't we just cut billions out of this budget two years ago? If times are so good in Texas, why is everybody struggling? Why do Texans die more quickly than other Americans?]
I am surrounded by those who think "Every Man for Himself!" Even the women think that. Here's a bumper sticker showing up on pickups lately.
(Available for purchase at http://www.amazon.com/MAGNET-Keep-Guns-Freedom-Money/dp/B00276KNQG)
But that's not how Boston handled things. Heroes and goats abound in both places, but a generalization is becoming clear:
Boston is a city full of heroes; West is a town full of victims.
The key difference? The community-minded spirit of the entire city (not just a few key individuals). People looked out for others they didn't know in Boston. West residents spoke often of their ability to know most of the townspeople. Waco has risen to the challenge to help West, but the efforts are charitable more than neighborly. It was Boston's diversity that helped people rise up, even for those they didn't know.
So here's to the straight people who fight for gay people. The men who defend women. The blacks who stand up for the rights of Hispanic immigrants. The people who do what's right, even if it doesn't benefit them--even if the benefactors don't look like them or think like them.
And here's a reminder to the quasi-anarchists, er "conservatives" on the other side: we belong to each other.
