Tuesday, May 02, 2006

This thought hasn't left my mind for almost five years

While it is true that the United States faces many threats, in a free society we need to be able to openly discuss and even protest the administration's ability to talk shit to us. We've been describing a police matter as a war since 9-11-01. We are in a massive criminal investigation. As such it warrants a certain unavoidable control of information. But if it is a war, it is only a war of ideologies. In that case it is only about whatever its supporters say it is about on any given day. It becomes an elastic monster you cannot kill because it simply stretches into a different shape and keeps devouring lives.

When American terrorists blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, did we go bomb the place we thought they came from? No. Why? Because it was our own real estate and the people in that area were "people like us." Don't think that double standard was lost for a moment on the people we have bombed with deep regret as necessary losses in our campaign to make The Whole World Safe from Terrorism.

There was something comforting about discovering that the Oklhoma City bombing was the work of home-grown rednecks. We worried for a moment that some foreigners had actually managed to reach out and touch us, but it was a false alarm. Only meddlesome socialist globalists and utterly paranoid security freaks cared whether people blew each other up in other countries. That's just what those people do, after all. Our embassy in some foreign land might get blown up, but the people working there should have known something like that might happen. A US Navy ship might get attacked, but it's a warship, after all, and it was way over there in...what's the name of that country again? Yeah, anyway, it's a big, dangerous world. Now all you kids get in the Suburban, dammit, it's time to take you all to sports practice. Buckle up. Turn on the air bags. Set the alarm in the house before you leave. We're here in the land of the safe.

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