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Our first priority is to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism. It's like a feller can't even write a serious editorial in support of American liber
by Lagged2Death 13y ago
Our first priority is to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism.
It's like a feller can't even write a serious editorial in support of American liberty without kowtowing to irrational fear-mongering anymore.
The battle to keep us jumping at shadows has been won so conclusively that no one even bothers to stand up and say anything like:
You are safe. Your family is safe. You are safer now than you would have been at nearly any other time in American history. Your children will probably view these years of The Terrorist Menace in much the same way we view McCarthyism and the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover - a humiliating betrayal of everything that was supposed to make America different from the rest of the world.
There is nothing patriotic about being afraid all the time.
But that won't sell, and the Senators who wrote this know it. I don't fault their judgement, but it makes me really sad.
- gknoy 13y agoThat was wonderfully said. May I share that with friends/family?
- Lagged2Death 13y agoThank you and please share with whomever you like!
- nooneelse 13y agoNo kidding. I have tried to put it to people in terms of the cold war. The US faced the existential threat of hundreds of ICBMs aimed and ready to fire. Heck, the combined arsenals may have been an existential threat to all intelligent life on the planet. Those are stakes that could start to justify being afraid all the time and surveilling everyone (if it would help with the threat). But terrorism? Not even close. The fear of it has already caused damage on us far in excess to what the pissant terrorists have accomplished. All we really should have feared was fear itself. Perhaps one can still make the claim that we are not descended from fearful men, but it will be quite a bit less true should our children try to claim it.