the six year itch
John writes: “Theres the blindly patriotic republicans, the bumbling democrats, and the people in the middle trying to calm everyone down. It seems like everyday I read the news the world just gets more and more messed up.
How can we make sense of it? Can we trust the media? The left wingers tell us the media is warping and controlling our opinion to some sort of grand scheme. Maybe forty years ago we could have trusted our politicians, but nowadays they're paying more attention to special interest groups then to their own constituents. Everybody has an axe to grind, an angle to impose, a personal opinion to express. Non-biased opinions are growing into a very precious commodity, even more then they were 10-20 years ago.
Just the other day (yesterday to be specific) I got into an argument with a co-worker over the way in which the president has misused the tragedy of september 11, and all the sadness, fear and anger it caused, to pursue his, and the people in his administrations, personal vendettas. I argued that the president used this fear of further terrorist attack to take away American freedoms at home, which I must say is an icy, slimy, slippery slope (Patriot act, warrant less wiretapping, anyone?), and fight unnecesary battles
abroad. I say battles, not war, because I approved of the war in Afghanistan, but disprove of the war in Iraq, both of which I consider to be battles in the "war on terror". My coworker, in what must have been a tactic he took from President Bush, accused me of being un-american, and supportive of the terrorists. This is a coworker I've known for a while, we work well together, and both of us have a lot of respect for the other, but this issue drove us into a screaming match (screaming on his part, I feel its important to say) in less then ten minutes. And when I stop to think about it, if this is what such an issue can do to two friends, why hasn't it, on a national level, completely torn us apart? I geuss the answer is that it slowly is, but it still needs some sort of final tilting point.
So I find myself wondering what I can do. What should I do? Sometimes I wish I owned a few acres in Kentucky, just so I could build a house, and get away from all this.”
and i say,
GO VOTE.
How can we make sense of it? Can we trust the media? The left wingers tell us the media is warping and controlling our opinion to some sort of grand scheme. Maybe forty years ago we could have trusted our politicians, but nowadays they're paying more attention to special interest groups then to their own constituents. Everybody has an axe to grind, an angle to impose, a personal opinion to express. Non-biased opinions are growing into a very precious commodity, even more then they were 10-20 years ago.
Just the other day (yesterday to be specific) I got into an argument with a co-worker over the way in which the president has misused the tragedy of september 11, and all the sadness, fear and anger it caused, to pursue his, and the people in his administrations, personal vendettas. I argued that the president used this fear of further terrorist attack to take away American freedoms at home, which I must say is an icy, slimy, slippery slope (Patriot act, warrant less wiretapping, anyone?), and fight unnecesary battles
abroad. I say battles, not war, because I approved of the war in Afghanistan, but disprove of the war in Iraq, both of which I consider to be battles in the "war on terror". My coworker, in what must have been a tactic he took from President Bush, accused me of being un-american, and supportive of the terrorists. This is a coworker I've known for a while, we work well together, and both of us have a lot of respect for the other, but this issue drove us into a screaming match (screaming on his part, I feel its important to say) in less then ten minutes. And when I stop to think about it, if this is what such an issue can do to two friends, why hasn't it, on a national level, completely torn us apart? I geuss the answer is that it slowly is, but it still needs some sort of final tilting point.
So I find myself wondering what I can do. What should I do? Sometimes I wish I owned a few acres in Kentucky, just so I could build a house, and get away from all this.”
and i say,
GO VOTE.
posted by greg @ 11:13 PM
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