Another Iraq?

For years, no, decades following the disaster that was the Viet Nam war, it was ingrained in the American psyche that we would not repeat that mistake. Each time some political hawk decided that a war was the answer to some world problem, we would automatically ask, ‘Is this going to be another Viet Nam?” It was one of the few good things to come from that fiasco: a healthy skepticism about our government and our leaders. A healthy, robust democracy requires from us a constant attention and monitoring to assure that our leaders are doing the job we hired them for. Without that attention, it will go astray very quickly.
However, time erases all things. As the decades passed, the pain began to ebb and with it our skepticism. On 9/11, the remnants of this distrust was swept away in the time it took three jets to take down the World Trade Center and a portion of the Pentagon. It was gone as if it never happened. We rallied behind our President without a pause or a doubt. It wouldn’t have mattered what his party was or what we previously thought of his character. Our government could do no wrong.
This path is so familiar to me now: the excuses, the lies, the finger pointing, the polarity, the split between us all. And in the end I suspect it will end up in the same place. We will have an angry distrust and pessimism with our whole system and a nationwide pain that will take years to heal. Inevitably some leaders will want us to approve of various military adventures in order to “project American Democracy into the world” and will once again use every PR technique and scheme to talk us into it. I can only hope that we will continue to ask them, “Will this be another Iraq?”

The Oath

I just had to share this little tidbit;

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause

Yet Another Conspiracy Theory

I am not normally a conspiratorialist; that is to say, a person that readily believes every conspiracy theory that pops out of the minds of wide-eyed paranoids. However, just for fun, I have taken to imagining a grand plot that seems just possible if not a bit far-fetched.
Imagine a scenario coming together as we approach the next presidential election wherein the Neocons around Bush the Lesser see their poll numbers heading even farther south. And with the chance of a massive Democratic take-over looming in September and with their hubris growing to even greater heights, they decide that something drastic must be done.
And so, I predict by way of another actual attack on our shores by terrorists or a manufactured attack by a black ops unit hired by the NeoCons, they will announce that our country is in imminent danger and it is far too dangerous of a situation to be left in the hands of namby-pamby relativist Democrats. And so, for the safety of our citizens and institutions, approaching elections will be suspended until further notice.
Even as I write this it comes off as crazy ravings of a disgruntled lefty so I’m just throwing in out there to see if it sticks. That way if I’m wrong I can say I didn’t mean it and if I’m right I can say I told you so and proclaim myself to be a brilliant political theorist. After all that has transpired in the last 5 years, anything is possible.

An open response to Mary Anna

We are now getting to the inevitable conclusion these discussions always lead to;
In the end, there is no way to actually prove these things and so one must step out on faith. That's fine. But what about a person like me who can't seem to do that and now, at this point in my life, can't imagine why I need or should desire to do such a thing. As they say in theatre; what's my motivation?
Anything you or I might read in the Bible is, without faith, irrelevant because it's just a collection of writings, oral traditions and letters the Catholic Church put together many centuries before. So when you give me Biblical quotes they might as well be readings from the phone book. There is no quote that you can show to me that will cause me to suddenly see the light and become a believer. So we are still at square one. Because I don't feel a lacking in my life or a fear of an afterlife or some other reward or punishment, there is no reason to follow this path. I either have to buy it on faith or it won't happen.
When a person prays for some outcome, they achieve the outcome about 50% of the time. If they don't pray, they achieve the outcome about 50% of the time. But if the person of prayer gets what they want, they say, "See how God answers prayer." And if not they say, "It is God's will".
If there is a catastrophe and many are killed but a few survive, the survivors thank God for saving them. But no one blames God for killing all of the others. This guy can do no wrong. He's like a practical joker with a mean streak.
I think it's a good thing that I don't believe because if, somehow, I were to suddenly believe, I would immediately hate him for all of the things he does to little babies and poor people and the helpless. There is no excuse for this. There is no amount of reasoning or pretty parables that will explain away these brutal actions. So, either he doesn't exist or he's the worst villain in the universe.
I am not interested in the least in changing your beliefs and I know I couldn't anyway but please know that I have not come to these conclusions lightly.
Sorry for the tirade.

Oman

Questions of Freedom

Here are two questions for all of you freedom lovers out there:

1.Would you risk your life to defend your country from invasion?

2. Would you donate the life of your child to change the style of government in a country on the other side of the world that you had never heard of before?

If you said yes to the first, I agree with you. If you said yes to the second you are a fool’s fool who will believe anything a politician says to you (liberal or conservative, it doesn’t matter).
There is something that many Americans don’t have a clue about. You may not believe it but here it is; not everyone on the world wants freedom. Crazy huh? Sounds nutty to us Americans but it’s true. Many people in the Middle East would like to vote. And once they get it they will elect a religious leader who will immediately limit their freedoms and will control them with religious (Sharia) laws. And here’s the kicker: they will like it.
When I was in the army I met otherwise well-adjusted guys who constantly complained about the army and consistently reenlisted. I asked several of them about this and they told me that the army supplied them with a dependable routine, predictable schedules, secure work situation where they would never get fired, always have a meal, always have clothes and, most of all, they were free from having to make decisions about their future. Everything was taken care of for them.
There are many who lived through Mussolini’s Fascist Italy and still miss it after all these years. Things were taken care of; no difficult and stressful decisions to be made and the trains ran on time. Indeed, many citizens in Russia still miss the Soviet Union’s control over their lives and likewise many residents of Iraq are voicing nostalgia for the iron fist of Saddam Hussein.
Americans are a unique breed because of the unique beginnings of our government and because everyone who immigrates here are doing so because they seek a less controlled structure. The rest don’t come here. Since most of us have this characteristic, we can’t, because of our ignorance and arrogance, understand why anyone else would want it any other way.
Well, they do. Let’s stop this notion that we are going to be the good guy and crash around the world like a bull in a china closet and shove “freedom” down everybody’s throat. I’m not talking about isolationism; I’m talking about minding our own business until someone asks for our help and advice. Then, by all means, let’s show them what freedom is, at least as far as it goes.