Is it just me?

Here is my primary beef with Bush: The guy directly and obscenely contradicts himself, often in the same breath. He is intellectually dishonest and a hypocrite of the greatest magnitude.

Before I get any knee-jerk reactions to that last comment:

• No, I am not a major lefty Democrat. I voted Democrat this last election because the Republicans have screwed the pooch so badly these last 8 years and I felt I had to "vote the bums out."
• I have voted for Republicans in the past.
• I know many politicians will contradict themselves, but rarely do they do it so blatantly and in the same breath.
• Yes, I have specific examples to provide...

Just last night in Bush's Farewell Address he said the following (a verbatim quote):

And with strong allies at our side, we have taken the fight to the terrorists and those who support them. Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored Al Qaeda and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school. Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States.

This was done by means of invasion and war. In both nations there have been innocent civilian casualties. No one knows for certain, but the lowest, most conservative estimates I can find on the Iraqi civilian death toll are in the 60,000-90,000 range (and those estimates are months old).

Now I understand that the enemy over there often fires RPGs and mortars from within homes of terrified civilians. I understand almost all of the combat is taking place in urban, close-quarter conditions. I do not in any way condemn our soldiers for doing a very hard job with exceptional professionalism and bravery. I place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of the country's political leadership of which Bush is the Commander in Chief.

Not five minutes later in the very same speech Bush goes on to say (another direct quote from the transcripts):

As we address these challenges - and others we cannot foresee tonight - America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

So what exactly did we do by invading a nation like Iraq to advance the ideology of freedom? Was the cause of peace advanced through a war of choice? Did we not kill innocent civilians by the thousands? Is that not the inevitable and utterly predictable outcome of any war?

Afghanistan is different - they actually attacked us whereas Iraq did not attack us nor did they have the WMD that the Administration said they did. They willfully bent intelligence to sell this war in order to advance the ideology of freedom in the Middle East and killed thousands of everyday Iraqi citizens in the process. So, by Bush's own logic: "Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere" is he not condemning the actions he himself ordered?

I fail to see how dropping a 500 lb bomb from miles in the air and killing civilians to promote the ideology of freedom is so different from a car bomb killing innocents to promote any other ideology. It is all murder by Bush's own logic. Meaning well doesn't make the families killed in either form of attack any less dead. It doesn't make the survivors mourn the loss of loved ones any less. It doesn't engender any less hate.

And this bit:

As we address these challenges - and others we cannot foresee tonight - America must maintain our moral clarity.

Moral clarity like Abu Ghraib? Moral clarity like Guantanamo? Moral clarity like secret prisons and renditions? Moral clarity like tapping the phones of your own citizens?

Regardless of where you come down on these issues you have to admit that they are morally murky at best. You have to admit that patriotic Americans of the best intentions and of all political stripes can have honest disagreements about the morality (and legality, for that matter) of the above actions undertaken by this Administration. That is the very antithesis of "moral clarity."

And if you are of the mindset that the "world is grey" (and I would tend to agree), and that moral clarity is at best elusive, then why would you make absolute statements like the ones Bush made in his speech? The contradictions and hypocrisy are built right in by his very own actions as President!

Disclaimer

I'm really very psyched about this whole Hike-n-Shoot thing coming up on Sunday. In addition to my brother and I, a friend of mine from work will be joining us. Another very old friend of mine has a scheduling conflict, but wants to join us next time.

So the army grows. Mountain hiking for conditioning and shooting afterwards for training. I'm just kidding about growing the army. It's kinda silly that I would have to say that, but with all of the data mining going on and the growing police state we live in I feel that such a disclaimer must be made.

DISCLAIMER:

The author of this web log (referred to as a "blog" hereinafter) does not in any way wish to overthrow the United States Government by any means other than legal electoral processes. The Author also does not espouse violence of any sort on this blog. Any references to violence are explicitly meant in the context of self-defense and even then, mostly in reference to anarchistic periods following a general collapse of Government.

Such a collapse would occur as a result of foolish and myopic Government policies or geopolitical strife that the Author of this blog could neither incite nor control. Neither does the Author wish for this collapse to occur and would therefore not facilitate such disintegration of the authorities and machinations of Government.

The entire purpose of this blog is to chronicle the Author's attempts to reach a state of preparedness in the event of such a collapse, not to incite rebellion other than ballot box rebellion (which is still legal as far as we've been told). Should voting against the ruling party become illegal, one would expect that revolt and rebellion would come from so many directions that the Government wouldn't worry about this pathetic little blog that no one reads.

In The Shadow of the Founding Fathers

I live in Central Virginia - a land rich with history going back to the very beginnings of America as a nation and back nearly to the beginnings of English colonialism in America.

This idyllic area used to be the Frontier, nestled against the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond which was Terra Incognita. Two of this nation's greatest explorers came from within spitting distance of where I am typing now - Lewis & Clark.

We also had our own Paul Revere type character - his name was Jack Jouett. He rode ahead of Colonel Tarelton and his English cavalry to warn Jefferson (Governor of Virginia at the time) and the Legislature that the Brits were coming for them. You should really read the wiki on him... an interesting fellow.

Also, three of the Founding Fathers came from this immediate area - Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. They were the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Presidents respectively. Jefferson was arguably one of the most notable intellectuals of his age with a list of amazing achievements far too long to detail here.

No, this isn't intended to be a history lesson. All of the people listed above come from within 20 miles of where I am right now. Without many of these people America may not exist. It certainly would be a very different place and it's unlikely that the difference would be good. In many ways, America and the promise of America were born here.

It is in the shadow of this greatness that an anger in me wells. I feel treasonous and small when I see what is happening to this country. I feel this way because with all of the shameful outrages being committed against our liberties and the promise of America, I do relatively little about it.

People from around here risked being hung to secure the liberties we are too lazy to defend these days. After 9/11 the authoritarians in this country saw an opportunity to consolidate power and they took it. Like sheep the Congress passed the USA Patriot Act despite the fact that only a handful of legislators even read the act.

We are being spied on, lied to, and arrested with no charges, no trial, and no counsel in some cases. What are we doing? Ha. We're blogging. I obviously consider myself among these less-than-revolutionary revolutionaries.

I hold myself in nearly as much contempt as I hold most of the sheep out there. The one difference is that I am a sheep who has opened his eyes. I inform myself, at least. I don't know - maybe it's worse to know what's going on and to do nothing than it is to be willfully ignorant. No, I have to believe that informing myself and at least voting from an informed standpoint makes me just a bit better than those who vote against their own self-interest out of sheer ignorance.

I do a little more than nothing. I volunteer for candidates in whom I believe. I am somewhat active in local politics. I teach my children to think and not to follow. I teach them to hold ignorance in contempt.

The saying, "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you" has never been more true to Americans at large.

What do I mean by that? They know who you've been calling. Oh, yes, friend. The Administration has been pushing for a retroactive law to immunize the phone companies for assisting the NSA in their warrantless wiretapping program. Can you say data-mining? I knew you could.

They also know what your spending habits are. That means the government knows whether or not you like to visit websites about bondage and sado-masochism. They know if you visited a gay dating site. They know if you rented a hotel room last week in Richmond and not Alexandria like you told your spouse. Think of everything that goes on any plastic you own... debit or credit.

Not only do they know what you charged on your plastic, they know where you go on the internet regardless of whether or not you bought anything there. ISPs have been issued orders under the USA Patriot Act to turn over their records. Gag orders come as part of these requests for data. Not only can they not refuse the request from the government, but they cannot appeal to judicial review. Been to WebMD, lately? Got a condition you don't want anyone to know about for whatever reason? The fact that you looked up information on Erectile Dysfunction is now no longer a secret, no longer anonymous.

The one thing that protects us in the mountains and mountains of data they have to sift through. But if your name pops up on some list somewhere, blowing your "cover", they can immediately look up all sorts of information on you. Big Brother sees all. In today's world of technology it is actually possible, unlike in Orwell's time when it was merely a dark fantasy.

In today's world of multi-terabyte databases it only takes a handful of people feeling pressure from the government to cave in and turn over gobs and gobs of data to the feds. It would take entire forests' worth of paper to print the data that could be rapidly and quietly turned over to the government without a single sheet of paper. An innocuous flow of ones and zeroes streaming over a secured pipeline through the internet.

The Information SuperHighway runs through your living room, beyotch.

This spying, this mining of dirty little secrets, is made even easier if a warrantless wiretap or two are placed on a key set of influential people. Maybe they have a dirty secret or two. Add to that the notion that these federal agents are "fighting terrorism" with this information and these executives may turn over the information without requiring a warrant and with no need for blackmail.

If the FBI or the NSA needs this information, it must be important. Right?

With the War on Terror being called the Long War, we are stepping onto an Orwellian stage from which no good can come. A stage that Orwell could only dream of but which is now lit with the harsh glare of technology. A war with no end in sight is a tyrant's wet dream.

• Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
• If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
• It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
• No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

- James Madison