(no subject)
My grandma died tonight. I was playing pool. I beat Rufus with 15 wins out of 24 games of nine-ball.
I forgot to write about this earlier:
Over the past week or two, there's been a lot of debate in response to the news that people on the United States Government's "terrorism watchlist" have purchased firearms. I shouldn't use the word "debate," really. More like "opinionated press making a huge deal out of something," which they seem to do a lot of these days. Everyone acts like there's this huge anti-American leftist conspiracy and whips the listening/viewing public into a veritable frenzy over the smallest thing.
You can entertain yourself with Bill O'Reilly and Mike Savage and the like - I certainly do. But the inevitable buzzkill of right-wing-radio entertainment is realizing that there are tens of millions of people out there nodding their heads in agreement. I am beginning to believe that taking a strong stand on anything is a slippery slope. If you agree vehemently with item A, then you will end up having to believe items B through G even if they don't seem right to you at first.
Everyone can generally agree that terrorists aren't nice people. Terrorism is No Fun, all in all. There are definitely arguments for it, but the bottom line is that no one wants terrorism to happen. It is by now widely acknowledged that "Terrorism" became a political watchword/buzzword after September 11, and we've all watched the American government do quite a few interesting things in the name of stopping terrorism. It turned out to be a highly effective rallying point - apparently once you declare a "War on Terror" you can do pretty much anything a government could want to do. No one can say "I'm Pro-Terror," of course, so no one can really disagree with you. More importantly, this War on Terrorism also finds a great backing by the populace due to the fact that the populace is very truly terrified.
I was thus (sadly) not surprised to hear the debate lean heavily to one side regarding gun purchases by people on the "terrorism watchlist." Overwhelmingly, the sentiment is that people on this terrorist watchlist should not be able to purchase guns. I began to feel ill upon hearing anyone express this sentiment on mass broadcast media.
People on the terrorism "watchlist" (oh, the mere existence of such a thing already makes me ill and depressed) have not even been charged with a crime, yet we discuss so lightly the prospect of taking away fundamental American rights from these people. "After all, they're on the watchlist - they shouldn't have the privilege of owning a gun." I can't think of anything more unamerican to say than that. No arrest, no habeas corpus, no trial, no conviction - but punishment and denial of rights, just because we think you might have the potential to possibly do something that might be able to be classified as terrorism.
I've been reading The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. It's about Soviet Russia's system of arrest, torture, and imprisonment under Stalin. Comparing America to Stalinist Russia is of course too extreme, but amongst the articles used to justify the imprisonment of tens of millions of innocent people, some deal with "terrorism" - and I'm sorry to say that many aspects of it reminds me of this popular American sentiment of - how should we say it - "being tough on anti-Americanism." I see our country going down a path in which many people's rights are taken away, and it makes me sad that no one seems to be able to see it due to this false sense of security - "well, I'm a good person, I'm not a terrorist or anything, shouldn't we protect our country?" But how long is it until you or I end up on a terrorism watchlist? When will they come for you? And when they come from you, how will you fight them when all of our former rights - free speech, free press, free religion, right to bear arms, right to a fair trial, protection from unlawful search and seizure, protection from coerced confession - have been eroded away in some fit of so-called "patriotism?"
It just makes me sad and angry, all of it.
I forgot to write about this earlier:
Over the past week or two, there's been a lot of debate in response to the news that people on the United States Government's "terrorism watchlist" have purchased firearms. I shouldn't use the word "debate," really. More like "opinionated press making a huge deal out of something," which they seem to do a lot of these days. Everyone acts like there's this huge anti-American leftist conspiracy and whips the listening/viewing public into a veritable frenzy over the smallest thing.
You can entertain yourself with Bill O'Reilly and Mike Savage and the like - I certainly do. But the inevitable buzzkill of right-wing-radio entertainment is realizing that there are tens of millions of people out there nodding their heads in agreement. I am beginning to believe that taking a strong stand on anything is a slippery slope. If you agree vehemently with item A, then you will end up having to believe items B through G even if they don't seem right to you at first.
Everyone can generally agree that terrorists aren't nice people. Terrorism is No Fun, all in all. There are definitely arguments for it, but the bottom line is that no one wants terrorism to happen. It is by now widely acknowledged that "Terrorism" became a political watchword/buzzword after September 11, and we've all watched the American government do quite a few interesting things in the name of stopping terrorism. It turned out to be a highly effective rallying point - apparently once you declare a "War on Terror" you can do pretty much anything a government could want to do. No one can say "I'm Pro-Terror," of course, so no one can really disagree with you. More importantly, this War on Terrorism also finds a great backing by the populace due to the fact that the populace is very truly terrified.
I was thus (sadly) not surprised to hear the debate lean heavily to one side regarding gun purchases by people on the "terrorism watchlist." Overwhelmingly, the sentiment is that people on this terrorist watchlist should not be able to purchase guns. I began to feel ill upon hearing anyone express this sentiment on mass broadcast media.
People on the terrorism "watchlist" (oh, the mere existence of such a thing already makes me ill and depressed) have not even been charged with a crime, yet we discuss so lightly the prospect of taking away fundamental American rights from these people. "After all, they're on the watchlist - they shouldn't have the privilege of owning a gun." I can't think of anything more unamerican to say than that. No arrest, no habeas corpus, no trial, no conviction - but punishment and denial of rights, just because we think you might have the potential to possibly do something that might be able to be classified as terrorism.
I've been reading The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. It's about Soviet Russia's system of arrest, torture, and imprisonment under Stalin. Comparing America to Stalinist Russia is of course too extreme, but amongst the articles used to justify the imprisonment of tens of millions of innocent people, some deal with "terrorism" - and I'm sorry to say that many aspects of it reminds me of this popular American sentiment of - how should we say it - "being tough on anti-Americanism." I see our country going down a path in which many people's rights are taken away, and it makes me sad that no one seems to be able to see it due to this false sense of security - "well, I'm a good person, I'm not a terrorist or anything, shouldn't we protect our country?" But how long is it until you or I end up on a terrorism watchlist? When will they come for you? And when they come from you, how will you fight them when all of our former rights - free speech, free press, free religion, right to bear arms, right to a fair trial, protection from unlawful search and seizure, protection from coerced confession - have been eroded away in some fit of so-called "patriotism?"
It just makes me sad and angry, all of it.