For what it's worth..

[kuangning]

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. -- Theodore Roosevelt.

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. -- Thomas Jefferson.

BUT, also by Jefferson...
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

And the rest of the story on "my country, right or wrong?"

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong. -- Stephen Decatur.

and

My Country right or wrong: when right, to keep her right; when wrong, to put her right. -Carl Schurz

Yes, it is ONE MORE POST on this bullshit. Skip past it if you're tired.

I woke up happy this morning.

I had formulated my views; yes, I've seen them change some over the last week, one does that, when dealing with new info. Fuck yourself up the ass with a pike if you think that makes me somehow less than you are. But I came to a decision on what I wanted to focus on, what I wanted to give my strength over to, and I agreed to disagree with the rest.

And then this afternoon, I come back to see that it's all started again. All the recriminations, the virulence, the utter, despicable, shamefully boring putrescence of American turning on American because we don't all think and feel the same. Is this the example we set, with the eyes of the world on us? Is this what we want the world to remember of us? Look, terrorists! You reduced the land of the free, the bastion of liberties such as freedom of speech to two factions! The go nuke everyone type, who hold everyone accountable for the actions of some, and spew out terms such as "acceptable loss of innocent life," and the ones who want to spend all their time pretending you didn't really do anything! What a victory... you split us into images of you, and more victims for them to train on.

The glorious part is, the two are so focused on harrying each other, they'll never get around to seeing that you're the common enemy, and so you're safe! The house divided will fall... but before it does, its citizens will show the rest of the world that all the things they believed in, really were just empty ideas in the modern world, and how long will it be, I wonder, before other countries are using America as an example again, but of rank failure this time?

Yes, I am seething. I am seething at Americans. The other countries may be excused: much the same way that I acknowledge that I can't wrap my mind around the realities you're living, I understand that you can't begin to comprehend ours. It is our job to show you what we, America, are like, what we stand for, what we are, and I am so ashamed of some of America today I would like to slit my wrists.

I'm not offended that you hold a different view than I do. You have your opinion, and I have mine. We need not hate each other for that... isn't that what America's about? What I want to know is, where the hell do you get off, trying to cram your opinions down someone else's throat? Frightening someone into silence, battering them verbally until they no longer feel free to speak? Is this America?

Wake the fuck up, and smell the stench of bodies burning. The enemies you're looking for are out there. The people you're brutalizing now.. they're the ones you should be standing beside, the ones who would, if need be, give their lives for you, who've given their time and their passions and their energy for people just like you, for the reason that you're all Americans. It means something to them. I'm sorry as hell that it doesn't to you.

From this second on, I, personally, am done with this. I will not, as I have not, be offended by reasonable posts on any side of the argument. But if I see what I have seen today continuing, I am going to start judging and eliminating friends.. and if that means I only wind up with foreigners in my circle of friends, then maybe that's not such a bad thing. The infighting's gone on long and past long enough, and I can't help but think that if this is what America's come to, then maybe the crews out there in lower Manhattan should go home to be safe with their loved ones, and let what will happen happen. I'm sure they can think of more pleasant places to be than where they are now.

Comments

Amen...

[katster.livejournal.com]

I am attempting to remember, and to be upset, and to be angry, but to remember that my friends are my friends. I'm worried about my friend who is married to a Syrian at the moment, I haven't heard from her in ages...and I'm scared some of my countrymen are gonna do something stupid.

And I'm trying to walk middle ground on what we should do. We can't just let this go, but we can't go in indiscriminately nuking either.

"Those of ye who would fight monsters, be careful not to become a monster yeself, and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." --Nietzsche.

--kat, one middle ground American.

Re: Amen...

[kuangning]

Thank you, katling. Frankly, all the people I know who neither support indiscriminate war nor whimpering and cringing quiescently, hoping for a magical return to normalcy, have been forced to lie low. To say nothing, because whatever they say is wrong.

Neither faction will own them, and both gang up to bully them.. whether by laying on the "you're no better than a terrorist" guilt or the "you don't want to march us into bombing and you don't think all Arabs are worthless dogs, you must be unAmerican." You, Anirion, others.. I know too many who are staying silent or mostly silent because you get jumped all over when you don't.

For what it's worth, again, I want blood too. But not just -any- blood. Only the blood of the people who have thousands of deaths on their hands will do for me... I'd say their consciences, but they likely don't have any.

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

Agreed, completely.

I feel honored that you added me to your friends list :P

Doesn't *anybody* see that sometimes you need to think, and sometimes you need to compromise?

(And if not, why not! EVERYONE should see that, because it's the ONLY thing that works! EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT MY WAY!)

*ahem*

you know, it's really hard to preach tolerance of others >_<

but, yeah. What I said up there before I started amusing myself.

[yitz.livejournal.com]

my only question is, do you see this as a change in the way americans act, or just a topical change? before they were bullying people to except abortion or prevent it, to accept animal testing or prevent it, to do so many other ridiculous things--always a drawing a clear black and white line through a sensitive issue, and most importantly ignoring reality...

whether animals should be used for testing to develop better skin care products? while people are busy dying of hunger and extreme poverty..

i don't see a change of any kind, other than a more narrow spectrum of what people care to address in their ridiculously irrelevant arguments.. this is what freedom of speech has been reduced to. talk wasn't always cheap .. i think we had a lot to do w/ cheapening it..

[kuangning]

Unfortunately, I agree with you. This is only a change of topic. But unlike many other things we've battered, denigrated and brutalized each other over... this horror has the potential within it to provide us a universal reason to change. This is why I'm not spending too much time focusing on "who did it?" I believe that the leadership has to be responsible for that. Their responsibility is national security, and they are not abdicating it. Our responsibilty is to heal America, as best we can, from the inside out. We needed change before, but had no overwhelming impetus to accomplish it. If thousands of deaths can provide that impetus, and we can rise to the challenge, then the terrorists have not only failed, but actively undone themselves... America will be a stronger nation for what they have done. And I think that that would be the most fitting tribute to the fallen that we could ever give them.