Re: OT Politics: Lieberman and the Real Center

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:00:49 -0500, Bob Giddings <bobg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Don't go off the deep end, Jan. Ever read 1984, Orwell's novel
about the effects of "permanent war"?

Ever try to drive down a busy highway with mosquitoes buzzing in
your ears? Eventually you start taking your hands off the wheel
and start slapping yourself silly. In a machine going 70 mph.

These guys are like mosquitoes. They can't really hurt us as a
nation, but they can make us hurt ourselves, when they make
people want to give the government currently sitting the power to
put everybody in jail but themselves. Among other things.

They always go overboard, just as you are doing now.

And don't get me wrong. I'm all in favor of criminal
investigation of everyone plotting any of this stuff. Everyone
is. But have a sense of scale.

Who is it more rational for the nation as a whole to fear? A
couple of guys with a bomb, who have to get it through a phalanx
of security at the airport? Or a vast bureaucracy with
plenipotentiary powers of arrest and intimidation, and complete
freedom from oversight in the name of "national security"?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Ask Israel how much good it does to declare War on something as
vague and amorphous as "Terror".

"They seek him here, they seek him there,
that damn'd elusive Pimpernel."

The way to fight terror is to go after the individuals who
perpetrate it. Over and over again. The same way you'd go after
bank robbers, or serial rapists.

Making it a War, and going after whole swathes of the world, is
like using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito in your ear. You
are apt to knock your self silly, and bleed a lot. As we have
done in Iraq.

Again, these guys can kill a few people, like any gang of
criminals. They should be strung up for that. But the real
danger is the harm they can make us do ourselves. That we
volunteer to do ourselves.

Here's another minor example: When was the last time you took a
commercial airplane ride? For pleasure? And why is that?

I used to fly around the country on the odd weekend, just to see
things. No more. In a few years, what you want to bet the
government ( with your taxes) takes over the airlines, just to
keep a few planes in the air, when absolutely no one wants to fly
because it's such a hassle? What? You want to fly to Chicago?
And what business do you have there? Can anybody vouch for that?
Do you have an Air Travel Security Clearance? Is your National
ID up to date? You are being watched, Mr. Orme. This attempt to
travel will be reported to your Block Captain.

Or has that day arrived?

That's the power of terrorists. To make us hurt ourselves.


Bob
--------------------------------------
Bob, good post.

The sad thing about it is the hard right crowd that doesn't get it.
Even today many of them still think Bush is brilliant.

Some of them even think we won the war in Iraq.

None of them question how well that 'war" is going. Hell, we are even
preparing to send more soldiers to Bagdad as I write this.

If only those people were donating their sons & daughters to the cause
they so fiercely defend -------------- OH, there I go dreaming again,
they want to do it with someone elses children, while they paste the
yellow ribbon on their SUV.

mike
--



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