Amerikaz War for Terror
Tis' a sad day, gentlemen. A
very sad day. This morning I found out that America is not what it used to be; a trite generalization, I know, but first let me build a case for this cliche--then feel free to make a decision.
America's children no longer recognize free speech. Free speech--that motivating, driving passion that fuels democracy and aids in the warding off of controlling theocracies and dictatorship is no longer understood or felt by America's youth.
Exhibit A: Three-fourths of high school students in a recent survey(n=100,000) incorrectly believed that flag-burning, one of our most sacred, identifiable rights, is actually illegal in our country.
Exhibit B: Only 80% of young people in the survey, as compared with their elders (%97) believed that we should be given
less freedoms, if this in turn gives us more protection against outsiders.
Not only is this second thought foolishly inaccurate, it is a dangerous worldview to hold, as it begins to shift the blame away from domestic, homefront problems and pushes them onto outside forces--a move that will likely make it more difficult to both identify and correct our own deficiencies in the future, due to the altered perspective that we have mangaged.
Most radically, though, this proves that terrorism has indeed gained some amount of ground on us, though some may consider the victory a small one. Culturally, we are a very different place than we were at the time of 9-11, and perhaps this is for the better. Maybe a more precise way of saying this is that it
could be for the better. If this reinforces the need for strong American intelligence and a return to domestic policy focus, then we will be both militarily and economically a more viable, less vulnerable place to live in the coming years.
We cannot and should not become a country that centers itself around the idea that we exist simply to retaliate against those things that infringe upon our borders. We are not an amoeba, and for this reason, why should we be content to sporadically wave our flagella at the merest hint of some outside stimuli, some distal business such as Iraq?
In closing, this is troubling news, made no more palatable by the suggestion that the next generation has no qualms about further increasing the amount of censorship that currently occurs in our day-to-day lives. The hope still exists that sense can be talked into our young people, before more backsliding occurs--once the path of democracy has been deviated from, it takes many steps to gain back what has been lost.
Here's to not losing.
