Oblivious To Danger

Littlechild@emperorsnuclothes.com/ June 16, 2017/ Uncategorized

Oblivious To Danger

There are many questions swirling around the sad sad case of Otto Warmbier, the young American student that was “convicted” of theft while touring North Korea in 2016 and was sentenced to FIFTEEN YEARS hard labor. His sentence was reduced only by virtue of him having sustained some sort of dreadful neurological injury.

Why is he in a coma? How brutal was his mistreatment under the boot of Kim Jung Un? Why was Obama unable to secure even the most basic human rights protection for him? Did Obama even TRY to help?

But the most basic question I have about the whole affair is: “What the HELL was he doing in that country to begin with???”

There are countless interesting and exciting places to visit in this world. Visiting a totalitarian country that is essentially an anti-American police state should be on NO ONE’S list of vacation spots. And this is especially true if that country’s leaders are on the lunatic fringe, as is the case in North Korea.

Why in the world did Warmbier decide that a trip to such a place would be a good idea? Why did he decide that using a China based tour company, “Young Pioneer Tours” was a good idea? Who in the Young Pioneer Tours organization decided that a visit to North Korea by young Americans was a good idea? Who in the Chinese government decided that it should allow “Young Pioneer Tours” to take American students to North Korea? Who decided to ignore the plain-as-day warning by the US State Department that reads: “The Department of State STRONGLY WARNS U.S. citizens NOT to travel to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). U.S. citizens in the DPRK are at serious risk of arrest and long term detention”?

And what is most remarkable about this story is that Otto Warmbier was NOT lacking in intellect or sophistication. He was a brilliant young man, graduating as salutatorian from his high school. He was very rapidly completing a double major in commerce and economics at the University of Virginia. You would THINK that he would know better. Apparently, however, he didn’t. We must ask why?

Despite incontestable intellectual ability, Mr. Warmbier was unable to see the danger that a sojourn in contemporary North Korea might entail. And he’s not alone. There are 3 other Americans being held in DPRK also for trumped up “crimes”. And, despite all the turmoil in the world’s “trouble spots”, many Americans have, in recent years, ventured to travel to these places anyway, only to be “detained” for arbitrary amounts of time, almost always in dangerous and squalid conditions. In addition to North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Venezuela and the Congo have also held American citizens recently on the flimsiest pretenses. How is it that intelligent and, ostensibly, sane American citizens decide to visit these countries under these circumstances?

I think the most basic answer to this question has to do with “mind set.” As Americans, we all have been so well protected that we are no longer “on the look out” for danger. Our day to day lives are generally so secure that we are no longer aware of how rare and special this security is. It’s hard for us to even imagine that there might be malevolent forces out there in the world that care nothing for fairness. Nothing for Justice. And nothing for human rights. That humans may be mere pawns in the battle for international hegemony. We have been so coddled that we can’t even picture such dystopia.

Our academic institutions also play a roll in this. With all the hogwash they spew about how great OTHER nations are and how ALL cultures are equivalent morally, and how close the world is to a liberal utopia, it’s NO WONDER that Americans (and especially young Americans) are as naive as they are.

The media is also partly to blame. News organizations often downplay reports of authoritarian behavior by governments. They made a sort of hero of Hugo Chavez, for example, even as he and his police murdered hundreds of dissidents in Venezuela. They made heroes of Black Lives Matter, a group made up of what amounts to domestic terrorists. They under report the tremendous danger associated with the resettlement of Syrian “refugees.” (The rape crisis in Sweden and England and the epidemic of violence in Germany are deliberately glossed over).

All of this results in tremendous numbers of Americans that are oblivious to danger. And not only are they are oblivious to danger abroad, they are also oblivious to danger at home as well. And, as a curious epiphenomena, they sometimes see danger where it isn’t. They worry about “micro aggressions” and upsetting “speech”, while oblivious to the terrorists who have moved in down the street. They seek “safe spaces” while their classmates threaten and bully students of different points of view. They are concerned about bakeries that won’t bake a gay wedding cake, but not about the horrific practice, commonplace in Iran, of throwing homosexuals off of parking garages to their deaths.

We need, individually, AND as a society, to wake up and smell the gunpowder. We must teach our children, as well as remind ourselves, that the world is a dangerous place, and our homeland can become dangerous as well. If we, individually and as a society, remain oblivious to the dangers abroad and at home, the furries of hell will visit us abroad and will soon be at our door back home.