I used to love to fly. Well maybe love is a strong word, but I never had any phobias about getting on a plane.
That seems to be changing lately. For the last number of years, when I have to get on a flight, I become anxious. I'm sure some of it is age, though it would seem that that should work in the reverse, where anxiety would fade as you get older. But that hasn't been the case.
I simply don't have the same faith in the world that I once had. I no longer know with certainty – in fact, I know the opposite with certainty – that the most qualified people are in the jobs that keep us safe. The lowering of standards in general, and the force-fitting of select individuals in particular, have watered down the talent pool in America.
Square pegs, round holes.
On top of that, our government has devolved into a bunch of finger-pointing crybabies who will do or say anything to pander to their base and completely ignore what is best for our country. This results in perpetual squabbling with minimal accomplishment and puts us at greater risk to our self-professed enemies. Our signs of national weakness and in-fighting are at an all-time high, an invitation to attack.
In light of the recent missile strikes on Israel, would anyone be surprised if another attack involving a commercial plane was in the cards for us? Except maybe this time one just gets shot down instead, circumventing all the security measures implemented to prevent another 9/11.
We’re all (though some more than others) guilty of ignoring, or being oblivious to, the butterfly effects of how certain policies affect other things that seem unrelated on the surface. Humans need lumber and paper, for instance, but extreme deforestation in the Amazon basin affects global greenhouse gases and climate. Failure to cull invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades would change the entire ecosystem of the tropical southeast.
A desire to end child abuse is laudable. But in our rush to demonize any type of corporal punishment, we took away a useful tool for parents who utilized it appropriately. Kids shouldn’t live in fear, but they should learn that crossing certain lines has greater consequences than crossing others. Many children today no longer do, and we all feel the repercussions of their subsequent entitlement.
A desire for a clean environment should be universal. But pushing over-the-top green limitations on an unprepared populace before their due course causes collateral damages which often exceed those we’re trying to curtail. The world has developed to where it is over centuries, and to rapidly pull the rug out from under it to achieve a goal causes untold pain for millions - counterintuitively, often the same millions that we promote other policies to protect.
The desire to minimize the effects of the pandemic was of course righteous. But the knee-jerk reactions to doing so led to more human damage than the virus itself, and the effects of that damage will likely outlive the strain. They set back education and the economy, which affected politics and elections, which affects foreign policy, which affects wars. This is the butterfly effect - two unrelated things that nonetheless change the course of each other.
Picking sides in global conflicts is unavoidable, but pointing out flaws of the opposing side (as if we don’t all have them) to justify excessive actions by our own in an attempt at moral equivalency actively discards our sense of humanity. This then trickles down to other layers in our country, our cities, our towns, and our own homes. We’d rather justify and defend the brutality of someone we’ve never met than respect the opinion of someone we claim to love.
A desire for equality is not in itself a desire for human casualties, but its efforts often ignore that possibility. They lead to things like affirmative action, which selectively alienates certain people (causing the same unrest it seeks to placate) and lowers standards (putting people at greater risk). It applies to public servants like teachers, police, and firefighters, but also to airport security, air traffic controllers, and the mechanics who keep planes operating properly.
This is what affects my comfort when flying. Are only the most vetted and qualified personnel involved in keeping that enormous, complicated piece of machinery in the air? Or are they frequently people with an agenda, or who got their positions via someone else’s agenda?
Are the best and brightest running our military intelligence, to give us the best odds of circumventing an attack? Are they running our government, to give us the best odds for positive relationships with foreign countries? Are they going out of their way to appease those who outwardly call for our destruction just to garner votes? Are they willing to overlook basic fairness to satisfy a novel definition of equity?
All of our decisions, even those we truly hope will make things better, have unforeseen and unintended consequences. We all need to develop our critical thinking in order to improve our rapidly fading foresight. If not, we’ll only continue finding ourselves saying “Wow, I didn’t see that coming” after the inevitable fallout of forcing untested policy changes on everyone.
Maybe then I’ll feel comfortable flying again.
Zephareth Ledbetter is the author of “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism”, available as an ebook at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004, and has numerous articles on Substack
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
It has also become a colossal pain in the ass at every step. From the process of finding and pricing flights, getting in and out of airports, checking in, TSA, boarding, luggage, etc.
What costs more? Security theatre at airports or putting armed guards on every flight?