Color Me Brown
3/3/2003
What is the purpose of the National Security Color System? If we are urged to live our lives “normally” regardless of the system, why bother to have it? The terrorists are going to wait until we as a country become indifferent to the constant terror threats. It took them eight years in between the two attacks on the World Trade Center. If there is one thing that they have that should scare us, it is patients.
The Color System is just setting up a “boy who cried wolf” situation. How many times can the Government raise the warning without event before the public dismisses all such warnings? In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 60% of New York residents said that the color system was not helpful. I would be very interested in hearing the results of a national poll regarding the Color System.
As a New Yorker, I am well aware of the possibilities of another terrorist attack, but I have honestly not altered my life in any noticeable way. The only way I have changed is that I try to tell those who are important to me that I love them a little more often. I have not gone out to buy duct tape or plastic sheets and I won’t. I will say this though; you will not catch me working in a skyscraper any time soon.
The United States has obviously overstepped its welcome in a number of countries. I wonder if the world would be so bad off if we did not constantly try to be the mediator. If “they” want to fight over a piece of land that they think is holy, let them! Do we think any of these countries would help us if the roles were reversed? I realize the economic implications of this, but is it not better to be alive with a few less dollars than dead or at constant risk of attack?
The United States is in a dangerous middle ground. We want to influence the world’s countries and governments, but we are too concerned about public opinion. The US needs to become either be the outright dictatorship over the world that it wants to become or let everyone else fend for itself.
As a democracy the general public of the Unites States makes little of the decisions that influence the world in which we reside. We elect people that we hope will make the decisions that we would have made but if they don’t there is little we can do. The National Color System was set up to calm the herd that is the American public. I for one think the Color System is shit brown!
Why? Just Because!