Outrage In Context
I was going to do a big outrage post on Thursday night regarding this week's Bush/GOP actions (which are, in fact, pretty damn outrageous) but the massacre at NIU made FISA seem less important that day. In the end I just didn't have the heart to write about either.
My kids -- Kaitlyn, in particular... the one who most seems to appreciate structure -- were pretty upset about the surprising and seemingly random nature of the violence and about it hitting so close to home. We had a long discussion in which I tried to explain the concept of probability and why they shouldn't be overly afraid or overreact or change how they go about their lives.
In the end it's another powerful reminder that we'll never be 100% safe in this life, that we can't protect our kids from every bad outcome, that we can't pro-actively identify everyone who wishes to do us harm, and that the best we can do is trust that our foundation is solid and that the odds are in our favor.
And that's really the context for my outrage over warrantless wiretapping.
My fellow citizens should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their fear to excuse BushCo's disregard for the constitution, breaking of the law, and attempt to spin the protesters as being weak on terrorism. Those knock-kneed cowards who would excuse pissing on the constitution at the first sign of danger, THOSE are the weak ones. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that's not what all those soldiers who died for this country from the revolution through the cold war had in mind when they made their sacrifice.
My kids -- Kaitlyn, in particular... the one who most seems to appreciate structure -- were pretty upset about the surprising and seemingly random nature of the violence and about it hitting so close to home. We had a long discussion in which I tried to explain the concept of probability and why they shouldn't be overly afraid or overreact or change how they go about their lives.
In the end it's another powerful reminder that we'll never be 100% safe in this life, that we can't protect our kids from every bad outcome, that we can't pro-actively identify everyone who wishes to do us harm, and that the best we can do is trust that our foundation is solid and that the odds are in our favor.
And that's really the context for my outrage over warrantless wiretapping.
My fellow citizens should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their fear to excuse BushCo's disregard for the constitution, breaking of the law, and attempt to spin the protesters as being weak on terrorism. Those knock-kneed cowards who would excuse pissing on the constitution at the first sign of danger, THOSE are the weak ones. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that's not what all those soldiers who died for this country from the revolution through the cold war had in mind when they made their sacrifice.
posted by Logic101 at 2/16/2008 09:24:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home