A Pack, not a Herd

A Pack, not a Herd - Glenn Reynolds - aka the Instapundit - writes this excellent column on what Americans can do to be more prepared for - and less worried about - terrorism.

I will say up front, though, that although I'm totally in favor of individual citizens taking the initiative to prepare themselves, such self-help measures would probably do a lot more good if the federal and state governments actually took a role in encouraging and facilitating them. But if they drop the ball, or if you want to get a leg up on the process before the much slower bureaucracy gets rolling, here are a few things you can do to help. The odds are, of course, that you'll never use them, or even come close to needing them, in the face of a terrorist attack. Those are actually pretty rare. But you'll probably never need your smoke detector, either. And, anyway, many of these skills and behaviors may turn out to be useful otherwise.

In the seventies and eighties, saying such things would get one labelled a "survivalist" - with the implicit assumption that one was a paranoid, probably white supremacist.

Good to see, in a way, that world events have made common sense acceptable again.

Posted by Mitch at November 20, 2002 08:44 AM