Anger

I am in an angry mood today. The headline reads "Shooting of Iraqi in Mosque angers Muslims." Do you want to know something? Hanging dead Americans from bridges makes me angry. Mortar shells landing in the middle of a crowded marketplace makes me angry. Some bastards in masks cutting the head off of some poor sod, bound and and foot, his body convulsing... makes me angry. Terrorists murdering innocent women who have worked thirty years to improve the lot of the average Iraqi... makes me angry. Watching the 3-year-old son of Sgt Carlos Riviera cry at his dad's funeral makes me especially angry. And I hope God, if he does exist, reserves a special place in hell just for Al Jezera. Get over it -

It's time we got over our supposed Western morality and fought this war the way it's being fought against us. I wonder how much damage a bunch of American terrorists running around Iraq could do? I mean real terrorists - unencumbered by the rules of war, or by the press, or by whatever anyone else thinks.

Ahh shit - the whole thing just makes me mad....

A couple of quotes I came across late one night...

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictator-ship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to great danger."

----HERMAN GORING at the Nuremberg Trials

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

----THOMAS JEFFERSON, in a letter from 1798

These quotes could apply to any number of things going on right now.

Reflections upon the great election of '04

Well, the election results are in and I am only slightly numb. I had suspected Kerry would have an uphill battle all along, but he probably didn’t help himself by acting so, well, Senatorial (if that’s even a word) for most of the campaign. Conversely, Bush made every effort to increase his appeal to Joseph Q. Everyman by showing that he was just a regular kind of guy. What can I say? People like other folks like themselves. It is one of the enduring paradoxes of democracy that the “will of the people” is so often placed upon a pedestal as some type of ideal, but that this will is often the result of nothing more than the coalescing of a collective fear of change, short term financial motivations, and blatant self-interest.

That said, I would suggest that the greatest tragedy of the 2004 elections isn’t that Kerry lost – it’s that the citizens of eleven (count ‘em, eleven!) states decided it was a good thing to codify their personal fears and prejudices by amending their state’s constitutions to outlaw Gay marriage. I often wonder what type of mass neurosis must be affecting so many of my fellow Americans that they actually think discrimination is allowable so long as it is legislated. I am, in fact, reminded of the fact that Adolph Hitler was legally elected, that his assumption of dictatorial powers was duly approved by the Reichstag, and that every single terrible thing that happened to the Jews in Germany was the direct result of statutes adapted by the government and enforced by the entire judicial apparatus of the nation.

Now don’t take this out of context and say that I am comparing our conservative Christian friends to the Nazis – the differences should be so abundantly clear that they need no elucidation here. I am merely voicing the opinion that just because something is legal, or even reflecting the will of a majority, doesn’t necessarily make it right. Considering our own country's recent history in the civil rights arena, I think this is a critical distinction, and one which should be in the forefront of every voters mind before they pull that lever. It has never been the proper place of government to legislate private morality, but to provide for the safety, rights and freedoms of all of its citizens. America’s greatest challenge is not Iraq, or terrorism, but whether we will allow ourselves to become the same type of insular and intolerant nation that distinguished us from the Old World two-hundred years ago.

I consider myself a patriotic American, and the times are very few indeed that I have been ashamed of my country. This is one of those times.

LePenseur