Perspective Heading into the New Year
December 31st, 2007Reading this article about the state of our country in the New York Times makes me wince because I’m highly critical of it and I know that you, Dear Reader, will look at me as an advocate of all the world’s ills when I’m finished but no matter my fear. I think I can trust you to not consider me a Nazi.
The article is a panicky, perspectiveless piece. It ignores past Presidents who it would certainly laud for their courage and success, like Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. They would likely counter that those men faced more concrete, dangerous enemies than we are currently facing. I would agree, and then say, “But just as our enemies are tamer, so are our civil liberty violations.” After that, they’d point to the CIA, as they do in the piece, and object to waterboarding and the destruction of camera footage in interrogation. I would agree on one point: obstruction of justice is no laughing matter, and it is serious. However, it is hardly the next Reich, and it might actually be appropriate considering the intelligence needs in the CIA.
Besides its hyperbole regarding the “lawlessness” prevelant today (a lawlessness I don’t see), I most ardently object to its romanticizing of principles that weren’t always enforced at the time that they were written. I mean, if our Founding Fathers and original Governors had slaughtered an entire nation of men, enslaved another and prevented about four fifths of its own from voting would we say, “Today’s government is not living up to the principles they set forth”?
Oh. I guess they did do all those things. But that’s okay, because they had nice principles, right? Damn George Bush for not being as flowery a writer as Thomas Jefferson, and damn unreasonable, dialogueless political commentary. “What sucks about our country is that we don’t follow the original founders — I don’t recognize my country!” Well, I do. I don’t have the perspective of a five year old and I’m not going to wax poetic because I’m hoping a Democrat gets elected and Bush goes to hell. I’m not a fan of George Bush’s by any means, but let’s not go nuts.
This is still a free country. I, for one, don’t live my life afraid of a Gestapo that doesn’t exist, or dreading an American President for political disagreement. I know I’m free to seek employment and education where I want, to enjoy film and literature at my convenience, to associate with anyone I’d want to associate with, to feed a hungry man, throw a football with my cousins or write one of several books I’m going to write. This is a greater country than it’s ever been, if for no other reason than “the principles” the Times holds up for all the world to deride as unfulfilled are greater than they’ve ever been in the country’s history. Is Bush a good President? I don’t think so. I think he’s awful, but we have to wait and see. I am sure of my love for this country and that I see its principles alive today. (That isn’t to accuse anyone of not loving their country: that is why there is an and.)
I’m just sorry the New York Times itself signed the article and not an opinion writer. This kind of garbage would be easier to swallow if it were just one man’s stupidity.