Lynch-Mob Meme: Part 9 of the Originating Series
I've been out of internet services for awhile but maybe it’s been a good thing for me, keeping me somewhat away from the web and so slightly lowering my savage indignation at the Orwellian devolution of the Republic. Oh well.
I have been again meditating a bit on the anger I (and some others perhaps) feel at Bush and his handlers, enablers, cronies, flunkies, and of course the Lemmocrats who have so emboldened (to use the Junta’s word) them with their cowardice, stupidity and complicity. It occurs to me that some of this anger might be a personalization, a focused projection of my generalized discontent, my frustrations, resentments, insecurities, my death-fear etc. Maybe if I did more to satisfy myself with my own estate, achievements and deportment I’d be more politically…philosophical. Then again, maybe hatred is precisely the right instinctive reaction to some people – an adaptation which prepares the individual to do the hideous things necessitated by defense from genuine threat.
Is it wrong to hate those who intend you harm? Is it wrong to hate those who merely proceed with reckless disregard? Of course much danger arises from the fact that hate's salutary adaptation may be (and indeed is perhaps more usually) misdirected at those who pose no threat, and the collective hatred is almost always exploited by cynics and misdirected against realtive innocents. Not being a reasonable emotion hatred, even more than love, rarely finds its rightful object.
Bushonomics
Bill Gates walks into a bar; suddenly the average worth of the customers is over a billion dollars.
Failure's Exponential Payoff
One thing that bothers me all the time is the way politicians talk as if their primary job were to defend the safety and security of the American people. That way lies dictatorship, as we have seen, because the State may decide to arm itself with absolute power over even the most private matters in order to protect the people from themselves, or each other. Missing here is any memory of the oath of office:
The oath to be taken by the president on first entering office is specified in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
The sorts of people who thought one should 'live free or die' wrote that oath. They knew that we had more to fear from government than from each other. The current adminsitration doesn't recognize that oath at all -- all apparently doing all they can to suspend, not defend the Constitution, in order to make us "safe." W doesn't believe in the rule of law at all -- he answers to a "Higher Father."
It seems to me that this failure is an impeachable dereliction. That impeachment is unlikely makes Paul Simon seem a sage, "When I look back at all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all."
The failure to impeach, fully invesitgate, prosecute and wholly repudiate Nixon led to Reagan. The failure to impeach, fully invesitgate, prosecute and wholly repudiate Reagan led to Bush 1. The failure to impeach, fully invesitgate, prosecute and wholly repudiate Bush 1 led to Bush 2. The failure to impeach, fully invesitgate, prosecute and wholly repudiate Bush 2 will lead to the death of deomcracy. There are a thousand Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Rices and Roves out there.
