Bombs for Parking Decks And Bombs for Liberty
Inter arma leges silent. - Latin maxim
Happy New Year to my loyal readers. As once professed to me, "the only thing that is certain is change," and 2007 will bring much to celebrate and contemplate.
Consider the recent bombing in Madrid. Apparently, the media in the United States didn't give it much coverage, but your dear Henry P. got plenty of it while traveling in Spain. Yes, days after staring at a large parking deck upon disembarking from my flight, ETA, a local terrorist group, flattened it, killing at least two people. I can only surmise that its limited exposure in the US is due to the fact that ETA in not affiliated with al-Qaeda or any other Muslim extremist group. ETA, the Basque separatists, want, among many demands, to have their own state in the middle of Spain.
Now consider the irony. In 2004, al-Qaeda operatives killed hundreds of people with bombs detonated on the Madrid subway. The Spanish populace responded by voting out the government. Two years later, an old thorn in the Spanish side, ETA, ends the cease-fire. And hours later, your dear Henry P. waded through a protest calling for a new government, one that will deal a fatal blow to the terrorists once and for all. In 2001, US citizens stiffened their resolve to take the fight to the murderers who started it with their hi-jacked planes. We didn't call for resignations.
Consider news of new policies regarding travel to stymie the growing complaints of long lines and delays at security. For a fee, travelers can register with the government, to include an ID card that has a microchip full of data and a fingerprint and retina information for an eye scan. After your background check, you earn a pass for special lines that promise ease and limited lines. If you've read 1984 by Orwell or Brave New World by Huxley, you may think of Lady Macbeth's words, "I feel now/ The future in the instant." We have arrived; you may sacrifice your liberty for convenience. But then you say what difference does it make if you don't participate in terrorism. Never mind the abuses that this system can lead to.
Consider how ideas change; years of patient pressure applied in multiple uncomfortable places. It doesn't occur by voting out an entire government. It doesn't come through appeasement. And it certainly doesn't come by sacrificing the principles that separate us from the medieval knuckleheads who want to enslave the world into a world-wide caliphate.
Consider the Latin above, "in war, the laws are silent."
Happy New Year to my loyal readers. As once professed to me, "the only thing that is certain is change," and 2007 will bring much to celebrate and contemplate.
Consider the recent bombing in Madrid. Apparently, the media in the United States didn't give it much coverage, but your dear Henry P. got plenty of it while traveling in Spain. Yes, days after staring at a large parking deck upon disembarking from my flight, ETA, a local terrorist group, flattened it, killing at least two people. I can only surmise that its limited exposure in the US is due to the fact that ETA in not affiliated with al-Qaeda or any other Muslim extremist group. ETA, the Basque separatists, want, among many demands, to have their own state in the middle of Spain.
Now consider the irony. In 2004, al-Qaeda operatives killed hundreds of people with bombs detonated on the Madrid subway. The Spanish populace responded by voting out the government. Two years later, an old thorn in the Spanish side, ETA, ends the cease-fire. And hours later, your dear Henry P. waded through a protest calling for a new government, one that will deal a fatal blow to the terrorists once and for all. In 2001, US citizens stiffened their resolve to take the fight to the murderers who started it with their hi-jacked planes. We didn't call for resignations.
Consider news of new policies regarding travel to stymie the growing complaints of long lines and delays at security. For a fee, travelers can register with the government, to include an ID card that has a microchip full of data and a fingerprint and retina information for an eye scan. After your background check, you earn a pass for special lines that promise ease and limited lines. If you've read 1984 by Orwell or Brave New World by Huxley, you may think of Lady Macbeth's words, "I feel now/ The future in the instant." We have arrived; you may sacrifice your liberty for convenience. But then you say what difference does it make if you don't participate in terrorism. Never mind the abuses that this system can lead to.
Consider how ideas change; years of patient pressure applied in multiple uncomfortable places. It doesn't occur by voting out an entire government. It doesn't come through appeasement. And it certainly doesn't come by sacrificing the principles that separate us from the medieval knuckleheads who want to enslave the world into a world-wide caliphate.
Consider the Latin above, "in war, the laws are silent."
posted by Henry Plantagenet at 8:39 PM
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