The Neutering Process
February 5, 2010
The following thoughts have been percolating for quite some time, and a recent “training” seminar has brought them to a point where I feel motivated to express them. It is my opinion that those entities who have the job of protecting us, (i.e. police, first responders, etc.), very often make the general populace feel as if they are completely incapable of generating any worthwhile response in an emergency situation. Let me be clear that I am not criticizing the job these people perform, but rather how they utilize, or rather, don’t utilize those of us involved in the emergency.
At a local emergency planning committee meeting (LEPC), I was shocked by the attitude that several of the officials had towards people who naturally responded to an emergency by offering assistance. The general consensus was that they were more of a problem than a solution, and I received the impression that these officials thought that they should actually be confined to their homes to keep them from “being in the way”. Even trained CERT volunteers were seen as little value, barely able to direct traffic or to run errands.
There were several troubling thoughts that I brought home from that meeting, but this one has persisted. I felt great indignation as being seen as worthless by those in my county who were entrusted with developing emergency response plans and implementing them when trouble arose. If those of us in the community are worthless, then they are at least partly responsible for making us so. Rather than involve the community in their plans and training, they desire only the communities monetary support. I sensed an attitude of superiority from them as they alone were privy to the “secret plans” and had the authority to implement them as they saw fit.
The precipitating event that forced my thought to be recorded here was a training session by our campus security police as to the appropriate response to an armed person in the building. As you can imagine, the main message hammered out in the meeting was that we were not to try to respond to the threat in any way, but rather to immediately call the security police and allow them to handle the situation. While their response time on my campus is not terribly slow, I know that if the armed person seeks to harm others, they will be too late. At the risk of incriminating myself I will not disclose my planned and practiced response to an armed assailant, but you can be assured that the first thing I’m going to reach for is not the phone. I am fully aware of the legal and moral consequences of my planned response and I have made the decision that if an armed assailant threatens anybody in my office, I will not be hiding under the desk punching buttons on my phone.
I grew up on a farm and we raised beef cattle. As part of my 4-H club participation, I raised and sold steers for many years. I know first hand the process and effects of neutering, and I refuse to submit to it.
