The Expectation of Rescue

[LibCampFireClub 635]

During the last several years, more and more stories appear in our news media to cover stories of people who build their homes in Santa Ana wind chutes, atop wooded mountains, fabulous beaches, only to watch their homes disappear to nothingness from fire, wind, rain, and storm. I'm not speaking of the mainstream one-home if that society, I'm speaking of the privileged people who choose to build or buy their homes in these dangerous places. Unless you're a frequent VJ poster, then you are probably aware these people are tempting fate with the expectation that fate will pass them by. As we would all expect, the most lovely places are often the most dangerous often with a greater chance of flood, fire, wind and storm.

I don't like to see our government assist these people who lose their homes from these very predictable, I fought fate and chance and fate and chance won, conditions. I think they should be on their own.

At the same time, we have thousands of American citizens who deliberately put themselves in harm's way. For the page one story, to convert or help people in the name of their religion, to follow an ideology, and so on. So, when it comes to stories of people getting captured in North Korea or any other known dangerous country, I consider them to have spun their own wheel and lost. To be on their own. As for North Korea, that's a hard place to get to. Paying attention to our own borders and our citizens within those borders is more important than trying to help idiots who find trouble by tempting trouble.

To the mods and REPORT button pushers, I am in fact posting a story of a report of Americans who do stupid stuff in foreign lands, and then find themselves on front page stories for the very stupid stuff our US State Department and their smart friends suggested they not do. For this reason, I am posting on opinion piece that some VJ members or mods may find objectionable, and as a result change the headline of my post, thereby changing the meaning of the story. The story posted here is just for reference. It could be any story that includes Americans who go to dangerous places, who knew these places were dangerous in advance, but chose to go there anyway.

By the same token, I fully salute and support our men and women of the American Armed Forces. They go, where they go to protect you and me. Please avoid using these people as your personal verbal pawns.

Three Americans are currently being held in North Korea, including missionaries Kenneth Bae, who was sentenced to 15 years in a hard labor camp, and Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio man caught leaving a Bible in a hotel room. The third, Matthew Miller, 25, was arrested and sentenced to six years in a labor camp after he reportedly entered the Hermit Kingdom and asked for asylum.

State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said Monday the U.S. has asked North Korea to pardon and release Bae and Miller and to release Fowle, “out of humanitarian concern for [him] and his family.” In the past, North Korea has released Americans it held following extra-governmental efforts. In 2009, former President Bill Clinton made what the White House said was a "private" trip to Pyongyang to secure the release of two Current TV journalists who had been captured after crossing into North Korea from China.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/15/us-often-powerless-when-terror-groups-rogue-regimes-hold-americans/

Edited September 15, 2014 by ExExpat