Getting Lucky

In the aftermath of the attempted bombing of Delta Flight 253 on Christmas Day, we are being treated to the unedifying sight of politicians rushing around in ever decreasing circles while chanting 'something must be done'. Meanwhile, bureaucrats are rewriting the security theater script and the average traveller will be expected to endure additional hours of aggravation for no significant increase in safety.

Not even grossly intrusive security systems can prevent every incident. Those who expect the government to guarantee their safety on airplanes are, to put it politely, delusional.

Martin McGuinness (now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and believed to have been Army Council Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA during the most recent episode of the 'troubles') referred to the 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, which killed five Conservative Members of Parliament and narrowly missed then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in the following terms:

“Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once – [the security services] will have to be lucky always."

Mr. McGuinness knows what he was talking about.

The real issue is simple: regardless of the efforts of the intelligence and security services, some successful attacks are inevitable. The question, then, is whether we are adult enough to accept what we can not avoid, even while greatly disliking it, or whether we will behave like a bunch of spoiled children whose unrealistic demands for perfect protection can only lead to a 'cure' that may well be worse than the disease.

To sacrifice our freedom in the fruitless pursuit of total safety is a betrayal of every value held by the founders of our nation.