> > > Yes, I think it is natural for people to be more afraid now than before the September 11 attacks. Sadly, though, human nature - the aspect of it that leads men to shoot random children - has always been like this.
> > >
> > > Gahalia
> >
> > Human nature has also always provided people who help. It helps me to remember that in the face of awful things.
>

> What all these articles made me think about is that these people *did* know. They just didn't believe their knowledge was valid. People generally do not think it's justified to act on a sense of disturbance. We're taught not to rely on our gut instincts. But that's what our gut instincts are *there* for. Instinct is a convenient word for our sense of self-preservation, our cue from all the little sensory signals we're not consciously aware of, that *something is wrong*. A weird feeling about a situation isn't something that requires us to look for evidence of danger -- it IS evidence.
>
> Nobody wants to look like an idiot if they're wrong, or be thought rude and nosy. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe people will laugh at us, or press charges. The reports which continue to surface in the news relating to this case are a very sad reminder that sometimes, in fact I would have to say *every* time, you really, really, really need to act on a sense of disturbance, and to hell with whether you look like an idiot. Even if you end up looking like an idiot nine times out of ten, the tenth time might have been Theresa.



Unfortunately, at least in American society, acting on gut instinct or some inate intuition would immediately open you up for a charge of civil rights violation.

In my opinion, we will not even begin to form a compassionate and humanistic society until we are willing to give up some of these "civil rights" in favor of the "human right" to be helpful, but mistaken.

Moush