The Real Danger

KPBS photo

By

Don Krieger

Six weeks after 9/11, the Patriot Act passed, granting police and federal authorities broad rights to search and hold American citizens without due process. As a nation, we willingly submitted to this sacrifice of our freedoms, and so handed our tormentors a far greater victory than they could have imagined.

Those expanded rights remain in effect through renewals of the Patriot Act fifteen years later. The people of France have allowed comparable rights to their police since the November 2015 murders in Paris. Because of the success of a single unhinged road rage incident in Nice and the unsupported claim of responsibility by ISIS, they will extend the sacrifice of their freedoms for at least an additional 3-6 months.

It is not the mad reasoning of the deranged or their decision to commit suicide by cop which is the real danger to us today. Rather it is our over reaction to deranged criminal acts by perpetrators who are already dead; it is our cowardice.

Don Krieger

I have built satellites, worked in the operating room, been in a cult, …

I earn my living as part of a group which is trying to understand and treat head injury.

In my poetry and short blog pieces, I want to express ideas with unambiguous clarity and intensity.

I willingly sacrifice rhyme and meter, art, cleverness, elegance, and beauty for these.