So the Democrats voted yesterday for Der Chimperor's little telecomm spying immunity bill, the net effect of which is to prevent effective prosecution of Der Chimperor's illegal wiretapping of, well, pretty much everybody. Obama even came out and said he was cool with it, seems Obama has about as much spine as the rest of the Democrats. Let us not also forget that 99% of the Dems voted for the Enabling Act oops Patriot Act also. I'd say we should all get together and buy them some spines, but I'm not sure there's anywhere in their squishy invertebrate bodies to put one.
I'd ask "what is it about being a Democrat that turns people into cowards", but in the end, I can't say that. Because, in the end, Congress is us -- a nation of cowards, a nation of fools who won't let our children play outside because it's "dangerous", who shudder in fear of imaginary child snatchers and won't let our kids climb trees, a nation of risk-adverse cowards who drive 4 ton SUV's because we feel "safer" and won't take mass transit and walk urban streets because "what if we get mugged?". We cower in fear in our homes clinging to our guns and our religion and our stupidity because we're scared to venture out into the wide, wide world and be, well, free. Because freedom is messy. And dangerous. And requires courage. And as a people, we just don't have that anymore.
Yes, I am aware of people who join the military because they are willing to fight for what they believe. I am aware of people who join protests against the Empire who go out onto the streets and risk being jailed for "disorderly conduct" or actual physical harm from the riot-baton-wearing stormtroopers that our police forces have become because they are willing to fight for what they believe. But for the most part, we're all too scared, too bought, and tell ourselves we don't believe anything at all. And then we elect people just like us to Congress, and wonder why they're as big of cowards as we are...
- Badtux the Invertebrate Penguin
I also blame laziness. We are a nation lacking in initiative and intellectual curiosity. Why bother to deal with the fallout from Chimpenfuhrer's fearmongering? It's just easier to sweep the whole thing under the rug and forget about it, right?
ReplyDeleteWe are also a nation of stupidity, but that's another paragraph for another day. I will say that laziness and stupidity understand one thing and one thing for certain: fear.
That whirring sound you hear in Boston is the sound of Samuel Adams, spinning in his grave.
ReplyDeleteThe Rethugs have been trying for over 60 years to build a culture of fear and it seems as though they have finally succeeded.
meh.
ReplyDeletei'm not quite buying your people just like us analysis.
our current process for s/electing people to represent us in the various halls of government pretty much weeds out the good and decent and ordinary and favors the pathological and rich and well-connected.
it's a given that we ordinary ones are going to have to wrest power away from the pathologicals, rather than wait for them to give it [back?] to us, but i'd argue that fear and laziness aren't the barriers we need to overcome so much as a failure of imagination is. difficult to recognize and understand those on the dark side unless you're already a member of the secret club.
then again, you haven't run for any governement office [that i know of] so maybe it is just laziness.
Laura -- a lot of that laziness and stupidity is willful. We refuse to do something to solve this country's problem because we're scared, then claim it's just because we don't have the energy or capability to do so.
ReplyDeleteWell, H, it's easy for those of us who live in a bubble to get an overly generous appraisal of our fellow Americans. After all, we don't rub shoulders on a daily basis with some random shoe salesman from Kansas or real estate broker from Texas. But I still have a number of relatives back there, and what is striking about them is the amount of fear that they have. They cling to their guns and their fear and their petty hatreds because actually doing something about the problems of this nation would require more courage than they have. They find out I live down the street from a housing project and around the block from a homeless shelter, and they just completely freak out, like, "how can you live like that?!". Uhm, I can live like that because people are just people, whether they live in the million-dollar townhouses next door to me or around the block in the homeless shelter. Haven't had any more trouble from one than the other.
But they cling to their fears...
As for me and politics, that is not where my talents lie. I've had some ventures in that direction before, and watching myself on television showed that it just doesn't work. In the end I'm a computer geek, that's where my talents lie, and so I work for Chinese investors selling network security devices designed in America implemented by Chinese programmers and comprising Taiwanese parts to Europeans. China may be a nasty place to live right now, but one thing you have to say, courage is not one of the things they lack. If I end up as an expatriate in China... well. So it goes.
Place for their spines: If you stick 'em up their arses and give 'em a mighty push, they'll sorta be in the right place, no?
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Joe Stilwell in China. There was a man with a spine. Constantly getting reined in, but it never stopped him from shooting his mouth off and saying it like it wuz.
Pathetic bunch of fucking arseholes. the people's representatives.