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Off The Rail - Feb 13, 2006 - Printable Version
- America, Where Logic Came To Die
by Mike Bohling
More and more, it appears that Americans are analytically impaired. Let’s take a cursory look at the war on terror. Iraq now has more terrorists than before Bush invaded, and has become a breeding ground and recruitment center for al Qaeda. The people of Iraq have elected the Islamist Shia to rule the country, much in the way that Iran is ruled.
In other recent elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood gained a strong foothold within the Egyptian government. Pakistan (our ally) has shown to be at best neutral, and at worst down right friendly toward al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And most recently, Hamas won in the Palestinian elections.
The total failure of Bush’s terrorism policy has manifested itself in the reality that Middle Eastern countries are rapidly replacing moderate secular governments with Islamic extremists. In 2005, the worldwide number of terrorist attacks reached an all time high of 4,483 incidents. That’s up from 1,733 incidents in 2001, the year Bush took office. The numbers plainly show that Bush’s approach to terrorism only reinforces it’s primary cause; Hatred.
Yet in spite of all of these realities, the latest LA Times poll (Jan 26, 2006) shows that 48% of adults surveyed approve Bush’s handling of terrorism. These disappointing poll results are perfect example of the sorry state of analytical thinking in America. The number of terrorists has grown, the number of terrorist attacks has grown, the number of extremist governments opposed to the U.S. has grown, but nearly half of those polled believe Bush deserves kudos for a job well done in fighting terrorism. I guess that is to be expected when you place ideology ahead of cold hard facts.
While we’re on the subject of terrorism and absurdities, recent polls also indicate that over half of U.S. citizens believe that illegal, warrantless spying on Americans is a good thing. Never mind that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires that a warrant must be issued to spy on Americans, or that FISA’s secret panel of judges pass out warrants out like Halloween Candy. Forget for a moment that the NSA can spy on you for three days before even requesting a warrant.
Over 53% of those surveyed don’t object to Bush and his pals pissing all over the Fourth Amendment and the breaking of constitutional law requiring judicial oversight. The same people who have already given up on using logic to address terrorism, are now ready to give up my civil rights because they think that getting a warrant to spy on Americans helps terrorists.
I don’t imagine that it ever occurred to those 53% to ask any of the bigger questions about illegal wiretapping. Questions like, why would Bush go to such extraordinary measures to avoid leaving a judicial paper trail? What activity is he trying to hide by evading judicial oversight? Or, would the FISA court refuse to grant any or all of these warrants because the activities are illegal or unethical?
I think that all of these questions can be answered by the biggest unasked question of them all:
If Bush’s warrantless wiretaps are righteous and not unethical in any way, why isn’t he requesting the warrants retroactively???
Instead of asking these questions and looking for answers, the media and some very gullible American people have decided that we must trade off our civil liberties in order to be safe from terrorism. While that notion is completely absurd to rational Americans, the rationally challenged see it as a great bargain. To be fair, the government is welcome to spy on me anytime they wish, I’m not hiding anything. All I ask is that they return the favor by, at the very least, honoring the constitution that they swore to uphold. Of course, that doesn’t work out too well unless they're not hiding anything either.
Even more irrationally, folks are acting as though corruption in government is late breaking news. Americans are shocked and appalled with the Abramoff scandal, but don’t give a second thought to Tom DeLay being appointed to the subcommittee that oversees the Justice Department investigation of his pal, Jack Abramoff. Judging from the poll numbers cited above, half of America would think that’s just A-okay.
Last week, we learned that Scooter Libby was told by the Vice President and other superiors to leak classified information about Valerie Plame to the press. No Problemo.
In December, Congress overwhelmingly approved of John McCain’s Anti-Torture bill, and the President dismissed it with a signing statement that says that the bill doesn’t apply to the Executive Branch. Okee-Dokey.
Our President refers to the Constitution as “Just a damn piece of paper”, and to show his contempt for it he abandons our founding principles of checks and balances, and judicial oversight. No Worries.
It’s no wonder Bush feels he can break any law he pleases. Half of the population either doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care. I could fill 10 pages with tales of America’s indifference to the corruption and abuse of power that is the Bush Administration, but it wouldn’t do any good because all of the logically handicapped Americans that need to see it stopped reading this article after the first paragraph. Critical thinking just isn’t in the cards.
I don’t know if it’s because people are not informed, or if they fear that drawing rational conclusions will contradict with their ideology, but something’s got to give. Americans need to understand that it will take logic and rationality to get us out of the mess that this presidency has gotten us into, and it’s time they stepped up to the plate. Total lack of accountability in Washington combined the inability of half of the U.S. population to critically understand information is by far America’s greatest threat.
And as for the Main Stream Media that feeds and encourages this irrationality, you can all kiss my copy of Posterior Analytics.
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