It's sorta fitting that we are silencing our own democratic process as we are trying to force it on others. Apparently it works great for the Iraqis, but Americans aren't ready for unfettered democracy. Either that or we've just been bad kids and are going to have to go sit in time out. And by time out I mean we will allow an oligarchic elite decide what can be said and what can't be said while the Fate of the Union (or is it Onion, since it stinks so bad right now) hangs in the balance.
I think that this is one of the two reasons that we're so hated around the world. We're a nation of hypocrites. A violent nation of hypocrites. We bomb the hell out of other countries, tell them how good freedom feels and they watch as we regulate the hell out of our own people. It's do as we say, not was we do (and y'all did) but with a loaded gun backing it up. Can anyone blame them for wondering why we cheerfully and patriotically bomb the hell out of them, while avoiding the very form of government that we claim that we want to impose on them?
The last fifty years of broadcast urinalism, NYT simulacrum in print, and government skrooling have buried America so deep in the proverbial cave of Plato's Republic, that I shudder to think what it will take to wake them up. The constitutional canary taken by the people into that cave has long been dead. But as long as the cave doesn't crumble, than nothing's wrong, right?
As horrible as the implications shall be, the cold logician within tells me they that would peddle a once-in-history birthright, born of their ancestor's blood and toil, can only get exactly what they're asking for.
And the scary part is that most of the people I know are unaware that their liberties are being eroded. I live up here in Canada, so we're further along the socialist road, but the similarities are astounding. A revolution needs to occur but I fear the government schools have produced generations of men who are unable and/or unwilling to stand up to tyranny. The bread and circuses recipe has workred well indeed.
Mike,
I got your IM late last night. No, you didn't burn me with your comments on that subject. She pretty much made a complete fool of her self and she tucked tail and ran. She got the big smackdown from you and everyone else that commented. I did end up deleting the whole conversation. I decided to let it stand for a while even after the conversation died but it wasn't something I was anxious to have a permenant record of on the Internet.
Chicken Butt!