Friday, June 06, 2003
I Was Thinking Scary Thoughts Last Night
I was wondering exactly what it would take for me, or you, or anyone to realize that the US government was genuinely Bad. The events after 9/11 were completely understandable in context. The rampant nationalism, the USA PATRIOT Act, the attack on Afghanistan. It would be easy to dismiss that as a simple, predictable reaction, and America will be back on its not-good-but-not-outright-evil path, right? But it has kept going. The war on Iraq is the most obvious example. There's also Patriot II. Fox News and Judith Miller, both potentially getting bigger thanks to the FCC. And Guantanamo Bay. But how far is too far? I eventually thought of the famous Niemoller quote about the Nazis, "First they came for the Communists. . ." (Interesting history on that quote. Look it up on Google.) So how far is too far? I don't expect these things to go away, not when the Democratic candidates for President have decided that they can best attack Bush for being soft on national security. Ooo, that's going to be effective. And the Democratic candidate who has tried to come across as the people's choice, the anti-war choice, Howard Dean, actually supports the Patriot Act?
Anyway, I came to the conclusion that if secret executions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (or anywhere) are authorized, then America will truly have gone too far. At that point, they can arrest Arabs without warrant, try them in secrecy, move them to a base where no laws apply (thanks, John Ashcroft!) and then kill them without anyone knowing.
Of course, once that line is crossed, what will I do?
I was wondering exactly what it would take for me, or you, or anyone to realize that the US government was genuinely Bad. The events after 9/11 were completely understandable in context. The rampant nationalism, the USA PATRIOT Act, the attack on Afghanistan. It would be easy to dismiss that as a simple, predictable reaction, and America will be back on its not-good-but-not-outright-evil path, right? But it has kept going. The war on Iraq is the most obvious example. There's also Patriot II. Fox News and Judith Miller, both potentially getting bigger thanks to the FCC. And Guantanamo Bay. But how far is too far? I eventually thought of the famous Niemoller quote about the Nazis, "First they came for the Communists. . ." (Interesting history on that quote. Look it up on Google.) So how far is too far? I don't expect these things to go away, not when the Democratic candidates for President have decided that they can best attack Bush for being soft on national security. Ooo, that's going to be effective. And the Democratic candidate who has tried to come across as the people's choice, the anti-war choice, Howard Dean, actually supports the Patriot Act?
Anyway, I came to the conclusion that if secret executions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (or anywhere) are authorized, then America will truly have gone too far. At that point, they can arrest Arabs without warrant, try them in secrecy, move them to a base where no laws apply (thanks, John Ashcroft!) and then kill them without anyone knowing.
Of course, once that line is crossed, what will I do?