3 Oct 19

“Delusion detests focus, and romance provides the veil.”

Suzanne Finnamore

“Feel” safe?

Today, several police officers were viciously attacked and stabbed inside the Paris, France Police Headquarters building, just across the street from Notre Dame Cathedral!

Several officers were injured, at least one fatally!

The attack(s) took place in a part of the building not open to the public, and thus considered “secure!”

Suspect was (eventually) shot to death at the scene.

Lesson for all of us:

Many love to speak wistfully of “Green Zones,” “Safe Areas,” and similar “safe” places, where mostly symbolic barriers and good intentions supposedly create a place that is magically free from harm, and where naive liberals can “feel safe”

Yet, bad guys sometimes don’t read the instructions, as we see!

The flawed “logic” continues that, when one finds himself within a “safe zone” (gun-free-zone, for example), personal arms, readiness, and alertness/awareness are all unnecessary.

The above news item fatally rebuts such wishful thinking!

Operators need to guard against the false sense of security offered by symbolic barriers, and thus maintain a constant state of readiness, no matter where we are!

In fact, it’s remarkable how few true, physical barriers really exist in our world, a world filled with endless signs, blinking lights, and assorted other symbolism, flimsy doors, flimsy locks, flimsy gates, flimsy fences, allegoric “barriers,” etc!

Personal arms and readiness represent the one and only “True Barrier!”

All else is wishful delusion!

Many among the unarmed discover this painful fact “the hard way,” every day.

Among those, many never get a second chance!

“It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is, than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

Carl Sagan

/John