They Get Letters demonstrates that a terror plot isn’t really a terror plot until Alberto Gonzales takes his jacket off and starts cracking his knuckles:
… Terrorists – even in possession of a couple of WMDs with the necessary ability to use them on U.S. soil – on their own have no effect on our freedoms, our way of life or our system of government, a fact of which terrorists themselves are aware. Terrorism is like building demolition, as unfortunate as that analogy is. Detonate several small, well-placed charges to weaken the structure, stand back and watch while the building’s own weight collapses it. In the case of terrorism, the attacks are meant to frighten the populace into undermining their own government. The difference is, people can choose to not be weakened by the attacks, thus actually undermining the terrorists.
So I ask: what kind of threat does terrorism pose to the United States? And I answer: not much. There are all kinds of physical threats we deal with all the time, and we have ways of anticipating and preparing for them, even mitigating their effects. The same with terrorism.
But we are never going to be 100% terrorism-proof. If we live in a police state, with no checks and balances to ensure the powers of the state are not being used lightly or for political reasons; being spied on; imprisoned indefinitely; exiled; rendered for torture, we may get very close to being 100% terrorism-proof for external threats. But I guarantee the threat of internal terrorism will increase.
And that’s where the actual threat to our freedoms, our way of life and our system of government lies. Internally. And I’m not just talking about domestic terrorism. I’m talking about the systematic dismantling of everything that makes us American. The system of government created by our Constitution. …
It will be a while before it can be said in polite company (none of us are polite; we’re bloggers, after all), but, as TGL says, this collision of political opportunism and ineptitude represents the true structural threat to our freedoms. The Fourth Amendment is largely gone; the First is under deliberate, methodological attack. Virtually no American tradition of government is too sacred to bruise, botch, or banish (except, of course, those that fund the party).
But you know, there are people scattered all around who truly care about some of those kooky ideas. The tide may or may not actually be turning (I’ve been fooled before), but thank heavens for the thousands and thousands and thousands of people out there who are moving beyond “fed up” toward “really p.o.’ed.” If anyone is going to keep things merely disastrous, rather than truly apocalyptic, it is they (and they is us).
The Lesser of Two Worst Case Scenarios
They Get Letters demonstrates that a terror plot isn’t really a terror plot until Alberto Gonzales takes his jacket off and starts cracking his knuckles:
It will be a while before it can be said in polite company (none of us are polite; we’re bloggers, after all), but, as TGL says, this collision of political opportunism and ineptitude represents the true structural threat to our freedoms. The Fourth Amendment is largely gone; the First is under deliberate, methodological attack. Virtually no American tradition of government is too sacred to bruise, botch, or banish (except, of course, those that fund the party).
But you know, there are people scattered all around who truly care about some of those kooky ideas. The tide may or may not actually be turning (I’ve been fooled before), but thank heavens for the thousands and thousands and thousands of people out there who are moving beyond “fed up” toward “really p.o.’ed.” If anyone is going to keep things merely disastrous, rather than truly apocalyptic, it is they (and they is us).
This entry was posted on August 31, 2006 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Color Commentary, Phantom News. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.