Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

September 18, 2002

The Death of Freedom.

by Mike Eschman

Americans have become a mean-spirited people. I'm
not talking about the way we treat others. It's the
way we treat each other. Somehow, we began to treat
the concept of "all men are created equal" and the
concept of "the pursuit of happiness" as diametrically
opposed concepts.

Let me explain that. Some of us are using "all men are
created equal" to deflect contrary opinions based on
expertise. That's what you are doing when you sneer at a
liberal who is a co-worker, neighbor or boss. It's more
convenient to forget that's what they are, but it doesn't
change what they are.

Some of us are behaving as if "the pursuit of happiness" meant
take what you can for you and yours. That's what is happening
when you co-opt the other guy's arguments for the express purpose
of enriching yourself.

In a free market economy, people get hurt. People are less
important that the market. You have to be willing to suffer
casualties. It works something like divorce, but each of us
gets multiple spouses, like it or not. Forget concepts like
affection or loyalty. What do they have to do with it?

This isn't about Enron. It is about middle America.
This isn't about 9-11. So many of us have seen the most
fundamental bonds, the bonds that give us life, behave
like fashion while we crave trust. Trust grows out of
faith in our parents. Both of them.

So mom and dad go their separate ways. Institutional values
are all that is left. They can't be trusted either? Well,
at least we are secure, here, in the world's only super-power.

Sometimes I wonder if this is how Hitler became the most popular
elected official of all time. Those people were hurt too.

One day you get home and the house is a mess, things are missing.
Police come by and you fill out a report. Later, an insurance
check comes - or doesn't. So much for Aunt May's wedding ring.

One day a big guy in traffic shoves you around. All he has to do
is stare you down from his driver side window, as you both sit mired
and ensnared in a smoky soup. That big guy gets to work and wonders
if this is his week to get laid off.

One day a sister, or a mother gets killed. Some fellow stops taking
his medication, cause he chose food and gas instead. He gets a couple
of tickets, that never happened to him before, but, as long as he pays up,
well, it's OK. Then he runs a light and your mother is dead.

One day for no apparent reason you lash out at a stranger. You wake up and
see the enemy bound to a common cause. What binds the enemy to a common cause?
You do. The target does. Think about this. If we bomb the entire middle east
into the fourth dimension, well, Bin Laden and his cronies still made a clean get
away.

We can't make enough Arab Americans wish they hadn't been born to take that
away from Bin Laden. And no matter how badly we beat Iraq, it's still
true. You need to get your hands on Bin Laden to scratch that itch. I think
the guy is winning. He is gleeful where ever he is - we are eating each
other. And the rich in this country are making sure things stay that way.

Preserving the current economic strata "as is" passes for domestic policy. Don't
think along party lines. No one is without guilt. Everyone is desperate to keep
others from going up a rung or falling themselves. The status Quo is all we have
left?

Goodbye to reason. God bless America. Have mercy on my soul.

Now I'll go back to keeping my mouth shut. Before someone shuts me up.   etc ...