In The Meantime

Duty calls me away, so in the meantime I'm reprinting these comments from an Eschaton post.

Fred Hyatt should be immediately fired. He seems to be a clear threat to freedom and democracy, and to the ideals and dream of America.

From his place as editor of the Washington Post, he needs to be more careful about making so many errors in trying to justify the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians, when other methods and tactics to destroy suspected WMD are available.

Also, the bottom line is that Al Qaeda attacked us with our own airplanes. If they had WMD, they would have used it. We are still making the mistake of associating Al Qaeda with the anthrax attacks, which are becoming more suspicious by the day, and are suspected to be unleashed by a domestic perpetrator.

There is no reason to change everything about our life because airline security was lax, along with severe mismanagement of our mechanisms to respond to anomalous events. There's no way the Pentagon should have been attacked at all considering the timeline, and many other doubts remain.

Yet he tells us to trust in a more restrictive, oppressive, and big government, which will undoubtedly be even more incompetent and paralyzed at the occurrence of anomalous events than it already is.

What's hidden in his rhetoric is a very dark kernel. War against people who hate us, and we shouldn't be the slightest concerned why they do. The gross inequality, exploitation of resources where the people of the land show little benefit, and disregard for holy places and practices should not be reexamined; no, we should ignore that and change the very core of our society and belief system, give up freedom, liberty and democracy, and fight eternal holy war against an impoverished and desperate culture.

Are we to give up not only our own dreams of freedom and democracy, but everyone else's in the world, to achieve this global security state?

I'm confused. I don't think anyone was asking for this. Because a rogue band of terrorists took advantage of lax airline security and intelligence, and managed to hijack a few planes and crash them into prominent buildings?

We should change everything because of that? Commercial airplanes are now weapons of mass destruction, and undoubtedly must signal the end of classical democratic liberalism and the full emergence of the corporate security state?

This talk is pure madness. It really is. Hyatt should be fired. Immediately. This kind of alarmist talk is a bigger threat than anything that has come along yet. The elitists seem to be in a very fearful mood, and seem be going mad and paranoid from it.

Sound and reasonable dialogue, along with the ways and means of liberty and democracy, are more than able to deal with our latest crisis. Perhaps we need to start examining sharing our tradition with others, and treating them with equal respect as stated in the Declaration of Independence, rather than throwing away the tradition when the resistance from those left out gets too hot.

*****

I will add two points from these stream-of-consciousness rant reactions posted on Eschaton earlier today. First, I may be being too harsh on Mr. Hiatt, in terms of getting fired, but I do find it atrocious that he takes such a counter American tone. If America is not the land of liberty, and the home of the brave, then I'd like to hear what it is about, and what it will then be called. This war was supposed to be fought for freedom, not as a realization of a new world order where frredom would be marginalized. So I'd like to hear Mr. Hiatt explain this more fully, just how this new reality has been communicated and accepted by the American people.

Second, by emphasizing dialogue, and the ways and means of liberty and democracy, I am not ruling out the use of coercion, violence, or war. Regrettable as these may be, there is a time and place for each, at least in our current state of humanity. To dive into these without exercising fully and honorably the other more enlightened and effective options, however, those that are more respectful of peoples' lives, well-being and rights, is tantamount to aggression, fueled by fear and ignorance, and devoid of any great vision or enduring good.