Hear, Hear

Steyn on the culture of passivity:

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision.

'Zackly.

I don't say anything about this statement in relation to the Virginia Tech massacre per se (the nucleus of Steyn's column) because we really don't know what happened yet. But as a general proposition, as I raise up three girls who will one day have to make their own ways out into a world full of awfulness, I feel it's of fundamental importance that I teach them not to be sheep, but to recognize when they need to step up and take things into their own hands.

UPDATE: Ace has a different take, focusing on Steyn's remarks as they do pertain to the kids at Tech, and opining that they are unfair and overstated. However, as Ace himself admits and as I say above, we don't really know what happened.

Ace's point about what people can/might/will do in crisis situations is fair enough. But I continue to believe that Steyn has a valid larger argument about unrealistic reliance on the state security blanket to protect us all, particularly "the Children" at all times. "A pack, not a herd" was popular rhetoric after 9/11 but seems to have dropped off somewhat. Steyn's message about the dangers of passivity is, I believe, simply a variant on that same theme.