Unity (i.e. Obedience)
With President Bush's inaguration taking place next week I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at one of the more telling quotes from the first four years of his administration. In December of 2001, responding to critics of the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft stated the following...and I quote:
"to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists"
For folks not familiar with the history of political manipulation, allow me to translate: "to those who open their faces and utter words not sanctioned directly by me: shut your pie hole". Yeah. You can basically see here the one thing that actually changed after 9-11: we became a nation of thin-skinned, group-think partisans, too insecure in our weak and ineffective policies to allow intelligent discussion. Debate might distract attention away from the desperate, knee-jerk mantra favored by the president: Everything's fine. Iraq is better off. Everything's fine.
Rinse.
Repeat.
But hey, you just have to look on the bright side: no. I'm serious. You have to look on the bright side, I'm having trouble finding it.Thanks.
"to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists"
For folks not familiar with the history of political manipulation, allow me to translate: "to those who open their faces and utter words not sanctioned directly by me: shut your pie hole". Yeah. You can basically see here the one thing that actually changed after 9-11: we became a nation of thin-skinned, group-think partisans, too insecure in our weak and ineffective policies to allow intelligent discussion. Debate might distract attention away from the desperate, knee-jerk mantra favored by the president: Everything's fine. Iraq is better off. Everything's fine.
Rinse.
Repeat.
But hey, you just have to look on the bright side: no. I'm serious. You have to look on the bright side, I'm having trouble finding it.Thanks.
posted by Samwick @ 7:42 AM
5 Comments:
At 6:28 PM,
Tonto said…
I now see why you were so upset about Ric's story he posted on Releasethehounds.blogspot.com...I see your point. Ric's story made me think that censorship and not speaking out against the war might be a good thing overall and the "just shut up and go along" is what is better. Is that what you thought too?
But I do not think that is not what he meant, given that I do see Ric's idea that we are all going to speak out and should because no power should go unchecked and mindless masses are as scary and self destructive as any terrorist...but given that, you would agree that the talk about the war while in other countries by our political people like Kerry fuel the propaganda by the terrorists regardless...hey they will use anything...which is just a byproduct of the free speech we enjoy.
Now it should NOT STOP any of us in any way from saying whatever we want whenever but we have to recognize the negative byproduct nonetheless.
Just like if we legislate marijuana..now I do not know enough about the subject to have an opinion if we should or shouldn't but just observing I can see it is very likely going to help, if allowed, a lot of sick people, but we also know that we will just as likely benefit a lot of other groups of people who shouldn't have it. That is not to say it should stop it from being legalized but it must be acknowledged that this is the bad byproduct of a good thing.
I think that is what Ric was trying to say...although much more extremely.
I say this because I agree with you but I can see how our satements by free speaking Americans are manipulated by those that wish us ill...and hey that is just the way it is...and we shouldn't stop talking for that reason but the byproduct of our statements is a reality.
Hopefuly you agree with me a little because I sure don't want you to stop visiting Releasethehounds..I will miss your "two cents" and Ric needs your more centered perspective.
At 3:42 AM,
Samwick said…
"given that, you would agree that the talk about the war while in other countries by our political people like Kerry fuel the propaganda by the terrorists regardless..."
The terrorists are Islamic facists. Facists who want nothing more than to gain power and subject muslims to one ideology, to one way of life, to a brutal supression of all forms of freedom. So, I'm afraid I disagree. I think when hate-filled pinheads like Bin Laden see us disagreeing and arguing, it infuriates them. Through dialogue...no matter how messy or unpleant it may be...we represent that which the terrorists hate the most. Period. I just always try to image what Bin Laden thinks when he hears people like Ashcroft say "you're only helping the terrorists." The whole point of 9-11 was to strike a blow to democracy...so how did Bin Laden feel when the Bush people responded to the attacks by saying, "My fellow Americans: agree with me or you're a traitor." This is one of the worst roads we can go down in this country.
Let's use another example. In the late 90's Clinton decided upon a policy of regime change in Iraq. Two assassination attempts against Hussein were then attempted. Now, while Bush's Iraq policy has made zero sense, Clinton's was even worse. He had no plan, it was thoroughly incoherent. Did republicans rally around Clinton and say, "Allright everyone, this is a time of unity, let's all support the troops in this." No. They accused Clinton of using the Iraq bombings as a way of distracting attention away from the Lewinsky scandal. There's no way around it, Hussein must have loved seeing our presidnet attacked by his own people during this time. So, are republicans responsible for comforting the enemy?
In my opinion, they were not. Now, I did not agree with the republican criticism, I thought there other, much better, reasons to oppose what Clinton was doing (e.g. what was the post-Hussein plan?). But, when a bad policy is in place, ANY debate is good. It may not be fair or polite, but it allows our policies to be constantly re-examined, scrutinized...and most importantly, improved when necessary.
Er, this is overly-long, but the point is this: the exchange of ideas does not comfort the enemy because it's precisely through debate that we are made strong enough to defeat them. To my mind, debate indicates that we are thick-skinned and confident, while these Ashcroft type statements indicate we are weak and afraid. So, I'm not entirely disagreeing with your point. As in the Hussein/Republican example, there are obviously times when the bad guys love certain statements by us. I just feel like criticism and debate are necessities; unpleasant ones, sure, but ones that strenghten us.
At 7:45 AM,
Samwick said…
To put this concisely: through disagreement we embody the ideals our enemies most hate.
At 12:50 PM,
Christopher said…
I logged on to www.releasethehounds.blogspot.com because it sounded interesting, but, since its last posting was early 2004 - over a year ago - it appears not to be the site you were describing.
Would you be able to leave the correct address on your next comment?
At 2:08 PM,
Samwick said…
Hi Christopher. I believe his website is
thehounds.blogspot.com
Let me know if this doesn't work and I'll try again. Take care...
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