It indeed is frustrating to be the one who believes they know the truth in a
crowd of people who don't. As the old saying goes, "it's hard to soar with Eagles
when you're surrounded by Turkeys."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy co-wrote a fabulous piece in The New York Times
with former United States Supreme Court Justice Warren E.
Burger about a similar thing. The article, "America Needs A Literacy Corps,"
focuses on illiteracy in the United
States. At the time the article was written the U.S. had the highest rate of
per-capita illiteracy of any of the industrialized nations. I'd hazard a guess
that's still true twenty years later.
The Judge and the Senator were exasperated by the fact that so many of their
fellow Americans couldn't read the very article they'd written. Worse, these
Americans can't read a safety warning on a piece of power equipment or dosage
directions on medication. And the two had an answer which would take a mere vote
of Congress, and require little or no funding and certainly not the $106 million
spent in 1987 alone to fight illiteracy. When the idea of a "Literacy Corps"
failed to materialize, imagine how frustrated the two men felt.
When it comes to matters of politics and socio-economic issues, many people
who hold strong beliefs refuse to accept any version of the truth but their own.
I hate to refer to a writeup hereinabove but these are daylogs so I feel better
about it. Hazelnut has a very valid point with which I agree when I wear my
Libertarian hat. Americans shared the fear of the midnight knock at a number
of points in their history, ranging from the Salem Witch Trials to Senator McCarthy's own hunt for Communists during the
1950s. More on point, when I was a child a film showed in school instructed us
to "duck and cover" under our desks lest a nearby atomic bomb blast us to
smithereens — Soviet Russia's version of a midnight knock. It's amazing how many adults thought it appropriate, whilst most of us kids thought it laughable.
The threat of mutually assured destruction no longer hangs over our heads.
The horrible plague of AIDS remains incurable, but the disease is now
survivable, thanks to amazing scientific breakthroughs. Terrorism, however,
remains an enigmatic enemy which comes knocking at midnight all to often in too
many corners of the globe these days.
Now, far be it from me to buy into hysteria.
However, giving up a few of our rights if we are law-abiding citizens who have
nothing to hide should not be too great a price to pay for the luxury of peace
of mind with regard to national security. If we fail to impose the same
requirements for, let's say, identification, on every person, then we're
going to end up being called racists as soon as profiling, instead, is used to
root out terrorists.
September 11, 2001; July 7, 2005 — both dates will live in infamy just as
the unprovoked attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor will. How many more September
11ths and July 7ths must we endure? We don't know. We don't know.
Those who'd harm citizens of the United Kingdom and/or citizens of the United
States are an unknown quantity. There's an old saying, "knowledge
is power." What, I ask, have we to be worried about, then, if we hand over a bit
of knowledge about ourselves so we can board an airliner, train or even bus and
truly feel safe?
If I am living as one of a legion of lawful automata, so be it. If it becomes
uncomfortable, there's always the ballot box, or for quicker relief, revolution.
There are far more of us citizens than there are folks in government.