Americans realize gov't can't protect us

By Marc E. Fitch

We are supposedly a nation run by the best and brightest, but that light seems to be dimming.

The official government experts are failing repeatedly, and that is not good news for public confidence in America's ability to do, well, anything. From building a website to stopping terrorism, the last 14 years have shown a remarkable decline in American government effectiveness. Most importantly is its inability to protect our citizens or enact basic common-sense controls to prevent disasters both natural and man made.

Of course, this is most recently in evidence with the news that the Ebola virus, despite all expert and presidential assurances to the contrary, has reached our shores. Naturally that media coverage has been extensive and has not added to the public's confidence in the ability of government experts and organizations to handle real life issues when they arise. More so, it has revealed a stunning lack of common sense, which leads us to wonder, is this bumbling on purpose, or is our government is so paralyzed with bureaucratic hurdles that it is no longer able to meet real-world challenges?

The quarantined family had little to no help from the CDC, only being told that they had to stay in their apartment for three weeks with armed police officers outside the door and a crew was sent to clean up the infected man's vomit – no hazmat suits or anything of the sort. Considering that the two infected Americans who were flown in from West Africa did so in a special jet and transported in medical bubbles, the seeming lack of concern when dealing with the cleanup has been disconcerting and a bit confusing.

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We are essentially being told two different things: Ebola is so dangerous we need a special jet and boy-in-a-plastic-bubble containment. But also, don't worry about the virus. It's not that infectious and doesn't require strict precautions.

Of course, the biggest question is, "Why are we still taking flights from West African countries with outbreaks?" This would seem a common-sense measure to take when you have a massive ocean separating the United States from the afflicted countries, but that's when the experts ride in to explain that such measures really wouldn't keep anyone safe. Here are some of the explanations recently offered from government experts in a Washington Post article:

• Air travel restrictions ignore the way Ebola is transmitted.
• The restrictions are also redundant.
• Travel restrictions make fighting Ebola much harder.
• Restricting air travel will make West Africa's humanitarian crisis worse.

All of these explanations, however, smack of excuse making after the fact and seem to ignore that their attempt to control the situation has already failed. Without restricting air travel to the United States, it was only an amount of time before the virus made its way here. The argument that restrictions ignore the way Ebola is transferred and that airline passengers are safe if the patient is not showing symptoms circumvents the fact that the virus is still being transported to other nations. It's great that the airline passengers aren't at risk, but what of the people the infected person comes into contact with when he or she arrives at their destination and starts showing symptoms? Friends, family, hospital employees, first responders, neighbors, none of whom would assume that the patient had anything more than your average flu. Air restrictions don't ignore the way the disease is transmitted; they keep it from being transmitted to other non-infected countries.

The idea that the restrictions are redundant because people are being screened at the airport is somewhat silly. It didn't work this time, and it won't work in the future. A virus with a long incubation period can easily be transferred via air travel with the infected person showing no signs or symptoms (obviously). But this common-sense fact need not bother the experts who assure us that Third-World equivalents of the TSA equipped with scanner thermometers will provide an impenetrable screen against the transfer of a virus.

The idea of restricting air travel from these countries somehow making it more difficult to treat the disease and offer aid to those nations is a bit ridiculous. Not allowing commercial flights direct from infected West African nations is not the same as saying that the U.S. government cannot send specialists and aid via military transport to those nations. Such flights would be much easier to control and monitor. The limited number of people involved would be trained and equipped to deal with the possibility of contraction.

It also ignores the fact that we haven't sent droves of specialists to help, and it doesn't look like we're going to in the near future. The people at the front lines are largely missionary doctors, not CDC officials; volunteers, not our revered experts from various government bureaucracies.

There's lots of talk about helping by officials and experts but little action being shown on behalf of more advanced Western nations to help. Saying that the best way to fight Ebola is to fight it where it is sounds nice, but they're not doing it and are allowing it to spread due to expert hand-wringing over the idea of enacting anything effective but restrictive.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that the confidence of the public in the ability of experts and the government to make common-sense, reasonable decisions to safeguard the country has been shaken. We live under an illusion that experts and the technology they wield can somehow insulate the richest, most powerful nation in the world from the creeping terror of life's chaos and complexity. But our experts are only normal people, many of whom function in ineffective bureaucratic environments that are more concerned with optics than results. Our technology is only as smart as the man or woman wielding it.

Public confidence continues to wane, as it rightfully should. For all its data collection and even a warning from Russia, the NSA, FBI and CIA couldn't stop two brothers with bombs made out of pressure cookers from killing and injuring citizens at the Boston Marathon.

The Secret Service can't stop an armed felon from an elevator ride with the president or a lunatic from making it into the White House. For all their blustering and assurances, the government couldn't prevent a virus from making the 3,000-mile flight into the United States.

As we continue to defer to experts and government officials instead of common sense and simple solutions, we will continue to see a breakdown in our nation's ability to confront threats, both in the present and the future.

Marc E. Fitch is the 2014 recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship and is the author of the book, "Paranormal Nation." His work has appeared in American Thinker and The Federalist. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and four children and works in the field of mental health. Marc can be reached through his website, MarcFitch.com.