We can be better later, after the sky has finished falling

Great Debates
1

I have been watching television lately. I know, I know.

I just watched this guy go off on how media coverage is detrimental to war, dissent should be unlawful in a perfect world, and respond to honest questions about how something near us is seriously going to explode (literally) any minute now, and Bush telling the nation to ‘go about their business’ after 9/11/01 was a mistake. He specificially said something about how ‘we can be better later’ in regards to the loss of civil rights i.e. ‘wiretapping,’ and we should ‘wait until we win,’ and everything will go back to normal.

Are people really afraid of this sort of stuff? Do they believe the arguments for it? Is it the publicity? I honestly don’t think someone is going into the middle of a metropolitan city with a dirty bomb just because Dick Cheney said it in a vice presidential debate, but I never considered people respected him enough to believe it.

I’m far more terrified of people driving with cell phones or operating 18 wheeler trucks half-asleep than terrorists in our midst or half a world away. I figure that vengeance doesn’t solve anything, and an ‘us and them’ or ‘with us or against us’ mentality is detrimental to anyone’s psyche. I’m more afraid of the growing possibility that folks with be locked up for just doubting there’ll be no V-T day in the near future, but then I’m entering a different kind of irrationality.

Could someone explain how this thinking is popular? Or clue me in on the part I’m missing? I don’t mean to be condescending (well, I wish I could say this without sounding condescending), but it makes no sense to me to believe in bogeymen.

If I misplaced this, sorry, I’m new.

2

I don’t think it is:

This might help:

Shame on you for being realistic!

3

That is sooo pre-9/11.

9/11 drove a whole bunch of people starkers. Look at Dennis Miller. In amongst the people genuinely unhinged by 9/11, theres a whole bunch of people cynically manipulating that genuine (if unreasoning) fear for thier own political ends. Can’t tell them apart, unless they inadvertently stand in front of a mirror…

4

Oh, and to address the opening line:

The sky will never actually fall; it will be forever teetering on the scary edge of collapse. Bits and pieces may fall, from time to time. The only thing keeping us safe from utter annihilation is the strict adherence to the viewpoints of Pantano and Coulter.

5

I should tell my co-worker’s husband about that book. It sounds right up his alley. We all know not to discuss politics in front of him because he gets downright angry if you say anything which might even be *construed *as criticism of the president or any of his officials. I’m not sure if he thinks it’s the terrorists or God himself who’s listening, but he seems to believe that even a whisper of criticism will jinx the whole thing, leading to more terrorist attacks and the death of thousands of troops.

My co-worker says he has stalked from the room at a friend’s house when they had the TV tuned to a Saturday Night Live sketch poking mild at Bush. I warned her that he should never watch The Daily Show or he might not recover.