Paranoia causes security scare

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In the latest reported airplane scare a young Orthodox Jew's religious equipment sent off suspicion and concern. The boxes he was strapping to himself (phylacteries) appeared to one passenger akin to explosive devices and this alarmed passenger alerted the plane staff who, in turn, alerted the pilot and the plane was promptly diverted to Philadelphia.

Turns out the phylacteries were as innocuous, if not a tad ridiculous, as a birthday party clown. But, hey, who knows in this day-and-age, right? After all, if fingernail clippers, water bottles and pen knives can torpedo a plane out of the sky, why shouldn't undue suspicion be aroused by dynamite looking objects?

This latest scare isn't any less preposterous or more offensive just because the suspect was a Jew.

Mike Krumboltz suggests this episode "clearly highlights the need for more cultural understanding." Really? Sounds to me like Mr Krumboltz is giving this incident an unwarranted anti-Semitic claim. In fact, the entire piece reads tolerantly of this airplane scare. I doubt the same measure of tolerance or "cultural understanding" would be shown were the individual Arab looking or dark skinned. Were Mr Krumboltz to express two cents on the reversed scenario I think it unlikely the man would forgive it as cultural misunderstanding; rather the sentiment would ring along the lines of better-safe-than-sorry. This latest scare isn't any less preposterous or more offensive just because the suspect was a Jew.

If anything the security scare was a result of our heightened climate. Paranoia transforms goblins and threats out of everyone else's appearances and behaviours. The "see something, say something" public announcements are a benign way of encouraging civilian spies (and counterproductive in big cities like NYC or LA where freaks and strange, often mentally sick, behaviour is de rigeur) as if folks wouldn't otherwise report possible danger. 

Paranoia transforms goblins and threats out of everyone else's appearances and behaviours.

Mass paranoia lives by 'better-safe-than-sorry' and 'you-never-know' which, taken for a life creed, amounts to cowardice and moral impotence. A nail file presents no danger to a commercial plane anymore than baby formula but governments and the security industry would have you misthinking differently because, well, hey, you never know.

And you never will know once you stop thinking and abandon common sense.