If ignorance is bliss...
...this guy is the happiest man in the world.
I check in on the Toledo Blade every now and again, to see what is happening in my old hometown. I always cringe when I do because it is typically one of the most unabashedly liberal papers around. The latest edition has an editorial that is mind blowing, from "former diplomat" Dan Simpson. Mr. Simpson lives in a world where every problem, every ill must be looked at through the lens of Bush hatred to the point that his editorial comments become almost comical.
Since 9/11 we have turned into a nation of scaredy-cats, buffaloed by our government into accepting all manner of infringements on our personal and civil liberties.
It is all done in the name of making us safer from terrorist attacks.
Of course, one of the safer places in the world is inside a locked cell, although our prisons can be a nightmare too.
There is nothing like a terrorist act on our soil taking the lives of three thousand of our fellow citizens to turn Americans into "scaredy-cats". There are few things more annoying than liberals bellyaching about having their rights taken away and tyranny, missing completely that if they had truly lost any of their rights they would not be able to slander the President with impunity. I doubt Mr. Simpson has the vaguest idea of what real oppression looks like. To him, having to take your shoes off is one step removed from Stalinist gulags (assuming he admits the existence of such gulags from a left wing dictator).
The FBI's latest plans are by no means new in intent or effect.
The Transportation Security Agency, imposed on us at our airports, has turned air travel into a running indignity. Take your shoes off. I'm confiscating your hand lotion. Step into this machine that can look through your clothes.
The TSA's activities also have been an important factor in killing some of our airlines.
Believe me Mr. Simpson, no one wants to look through your clothes voluntarily. Uh, Mr. Simpson in case you haven't noticed, oil prices and therefore aviation fuel prices are up a little bit. That is the reason, along with reduced demand due to poor economic conditions, that airlines are struggling so mightily and reducing the number of flights. Is anyone really choosing to drive from New York to L.A. because of the indignity of having to remove their shoes before boarding a plane? Perhaps worst of all? Other nations don't like us as much...
We should think about other post-9/11 assaults on our freedom: Guantanamo, the labeling of American citizens as "enemy combatants," and the Abu Ghraib atrocities should be brought to mind. Psalm 80 speaks of "the derision of our neighbors."
People of other countries who have always envied us for our freedoms and our sangfroid in the face of adversity now "laugh us to scorn" and think we have lost our minds.
Last time I checked, America is the world's only superpower. We stand alone in terms of military might. We are not the zit faced kid who needs the cool kids to like them. Who cares if Europeans like us, because it is us they will turn to when something bad happens and a nation with a spine needs to step up. Continue to wax poetic about the injustices you are suffering while kept safe by the very policies you deride. Unless of course you can point to their failure in all of the terrorist attacks since 9/11/01...
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