Ashcroft's In Your Closet
We live in interesting times with bin Laden under our bed's and Ashcroft in our closets. Some say that 9-11 brought us together. It didn't it is tearing us apart, after all if "If you're not with us you're against us". The Right describes us as anti this and anti that, as America haters. Are they stupid, mean-spirited, or are they just afraid. The fallacy they are committing is they say that if we hate some aspect of America we hate the whole country and that is absurd. So why do so many buy into that rhetoric? When Rush Limbaugh had that cyst on his ass was he a Limbaugh-hater, and when Cheney goes to the Doctor and the Doctor points out that he's putting on a few pounds and how dangerous that is, how it could prematurely end his life does he accuse the doctor of being a Cheney-hater. Does his wife call the doctor and accuse him of being anti-Cheney? If the Doctor fails to point out Dick's stylish hairdo is the glass half-full or half-empty? The "anti" rhetoric is what divides us it doesn't unite us, and yet we hear a constant stream of it everyday. This is the politics of fear and hate. Not by those of us who point out our lost freedoms, George's hypocrisy and yes hate, but rather by those who issue a new warning whenever they get in political trouble or want to take more of our freedoms away, or simply want to stifle dissent. This crowd is fond of cost benefit analysis, well we need a little more of that when it comes to our freedoms. The government tells us that we are in greater danger than ever before, if that's true whatever they're doing isn't working. Excuse us if We're cynical but these warnings seem to coincide with plans to take even more of our freedoms. Didn't we hear heightened warnings before Congress passed the PATRIOT ACT and we have just heard it again for HOMELAND SECURITY. Where is the benefit from all the freedoms we have already given up this past year and a half. Where is the evidence that the loss of those freedoms has helped? Convince us Mr. President that checking our Grandmothers shoe's for bombs and pulling a passenger out of line for saying you are dumb as a rock has increased our safety. Freedom entails risk. We can deal with the bogeyman bin Laden under our beds, but get that asshole Ashcroft out of our closets, and George either you're with us or you're against us. Of course, it's not that easy is it George. We don't know why you think taking more and more freedoms is necessary, some sort of a power trip, and you know what they say about power George, or perhaps It's just fear. Governing from fear and not reason is a dangerous business, we deserve better. So when we criticize you, it's because we love America. Not a flag on our SUV patriotism, not a you're with us or you're against us patriotism, but one based on reason and caring not only for our fellow citizens, but for the rest of the world as well.
Comments
With all due respect Norm, something you get is something most others don't.
There's a difference between criticism and blatant pot-shooting. Most of the criticism against President Bush takes the form of "he's an idiot and can't do anything right." True open debate is one thing, but the piling on that goes on is what drives people up the wall.
I definitely see what you mean. I too have gone after the Patriot act, written about the secret trials, and my general disdain for the idiotic warnings that plague the news everyday that have almost no basis in fact.
That's discussion. That's debate. And that's fine.
But to attack the President and the government in a way that presents the lot as uninterested in the safety of America and Americans and is more interested in becoming an emperor is well over the line, and I, at least for myself, think that's where people like myself draw the line.
One of my main readers is a staunch anti-Bushite. I rib him every once in awhile, and I call him out when he makes a cheap shot, but I have never called him unamerican because in the end it's the debate that needs to be had in order to arrive at solutions.
I know I don't speak for a majority in the conservative world, most of whom think that any attack on the President is an unamerican act. I do however think there are quite a few, myself included, that don't wanted to be painted with that same paranoid brush that colors the others.
I understand that the Bush is an idiot rhetoric annoys the conservatives , and criticism of it being a cheap shot is certainly understandable. What is not understandable and certainly not acceptable is to question one's love of country or to brandish the America-hater label. It may be in poor taste to criticize the "Shrub" but it is not unpatriotic.
I can't find anything to argue with in the post, Norm. Well said.
I've spoken out often about the need for more intelligent debate in America, but the quality of our political engagement might not be as poor relative to other countries as the quantity of it. We need more people to participate more than we need people to participate in a nicer way. In most democratic nations, especially the most participatory ones, partisan leaders (even good ones) are called perverts, war criminals, idiots, tyrants, hideously ugly, foul-smelling and so on (more than one of these was also said of Lincoln). I've taken it as somewhat normal that in a game with such high stakes, many will throw low blows whenever they can get them. Would that more Americans were at least throwing punches.