The longer I live, the better I get at being 'safe'. I can skirt disaster, trouble, difficulty and contention so well that most of the time I live a pretty contented and happy existence. More than almost anything else, I believe 'safe' is the word I would use to describe the direction of humanity during my lifetime. It sounds alright when I say it, but the more I think about it, the more I doubt it.
A woman I know was talking about when she was a child, about sixty-five years ago I guess, when her and her family would pile into the car and go to church. She talked about how glad she was that they were able to go, then realized that if they had had to have seat belts for everyone they would not have been able to go at all. She said that she wasn't sure if things were better now, with seat belts. I would have to agree. However, seat belts represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of 'safety' with which we are encumbered today. With automobiles alone we are saddled with safety windows, safety locks, airbags, safety glass, mandatory insurance, radar-controlled speed limits, licenses, eye exams, and now they are introducing satellite controlled tracking for more efficient policing. These are just a few of the safety measures to which we are subject on a daily basis. Don't you feel safe?
We are told that going through an airport scanner or pat-down keeps us safe from terrorists. We are told that purchasing food from Government inspected sources will keep us safe from food poisoning. We are told that if we have health insurance we are safe from disease. And the list goes on and on. I don't remember exactly when, but somewhere in my past I awoke to the reality that life was dangerous. Waking up is life-threatening and living in today's world is an absolute mess of perilous circumstances. I cannot do one thing in the day which will not put me in jeopardy. This is no secret. I think everyone knows it. But what is different about today is that people are working overtime to eliminate ALL the risk of living. They do this in a number of ways.
When I was pregnant with my first child, the Doctor informed me that I was entitled to a free ultrasound of my infant to determine if the child were severely handicapped. If the child was found to be less than normal, I was then entitled to a free abortion. (When he said that, I felt like throwing up.) So, I learned that one way of dealing with a dangerous situation for me or my unborn child was instant death for the child. Hmm.
In the year 2002, we as a nation were subject to the amazing display of “terror in the skies” when the twin towers and the Pentagon were attacked. Everyone panicked and felt the dreadful pain of thousands of people being destroyed. As a result, new laws were passed, new wars were started and we all felt safer. Right? I learned that when your country feels unsafe, you take away someone's freedom and you begin killing someone else.
We used to live near a school in a small town much like the one in this town. There were so many fights in the halls and so many weapons being used that the city and the school decided that in order to keep the children safe, they needed an armed police guard on duty during school hours. Random searches, police dogs, locked doors and restricted movement became the norm in that school. I learned that to keep these children safe we had to put them in a cage with a guard.
A small farm in the mid-west sells raw milk and the FBI shuts them down for food terrorism. I learned that in order to be safe, we have to restrict everyone, no matter how well-meaning he is.
And the moral of the story is: if you want to be safe you either have to be dead, or in a cage; and we aren't too sure about that cage.
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