Because it’s a good point.
Originally Posted on January 15th, 2008:The esteemed Chef Kevin replied to my post from a few days ago about the RealID, and he said something that I think is a good point. My reply ended up being a bit long, so I decided to be lazy and make it a blog post. It explains a bit about my philosophy behind some statements as well as how I perceive and make judgments about certain things. Here’s what he had to say:
And for the US Government vs. Nazi Germany. My father grew up and lived through Nazi Germany. 60+ years later he still doesn’t talk about it. Makes you wonder if we are really that close. Not an argument vs. your blog…just a thought.
By all means, argue my blogs! If there’s something wrong with ‘em, I want to know.
No, we’re not Nazi Germany and I hope we never get there. But we are doing a lot of things Nazi Germany did. Aggressive militarism, propaganda spin machines and politicians stirring up belligerent nationalism, the systematic discrediting of opposition as “unpatriotic,” disarming the public, stifling dissent, using the police in, ahem, totalitarian ways… the list goes on and on. I doubt the Germans of that generation thought they’d go down in history as the villains of the age.
Heh, we’re not rounding people up and gassing them (yet), but the troubling part of this is in the resemblance. If it looks like fascism, if it smells like fascism, if it tastes like fascism, it’s probably fascism. The question we need to ask ourselves when these things surface is whether they’ll create more freedom or less? How can it be abused?
Not a single world leader wakes up in the morning and says “It’s a fine day! Means there’s not enough evil being done out there!” People who do evil from conviction usually believe they’re doing something good, whether it’s for “your own good,” “their own good,” or “our own good.” Even though Hitler did some horrendous things, in his mind he must have thought it was for a “greater good”–the worst “good” of them all. The kind in which we’re willing to justify any act of barbarism to achieve that lofty-though-often-ultimately-misguided goal. Notice that it’s never the collective idea of what the greater good ought to be, it’s always the version of one man/small group’s greater good that is sought after.
In fighting terrorism, we’re doing it for the greater good. What that greater good is depends on who you ask. Take a look at what the people (and their sponsors: follow the money) implementing this identification system stand to gain from it. What do the rest of us have to lose? Have the steps we’ve taken to fight terrorism at home led us closer to liberty, or closer to tyranny–and more importantly, is that something we’re actually considering as an option?
What we’re doing in this country is building a castle upon a glass foundation. Sooner or later, something is going to give out. Heh, it’s pretty bad when you actually have to try not to destroy yourself, but such is the human condition: so much potential for good, so much potential for evil.
I believe that in the future, historians will say that there were signs. They will say that there was a pattern to how it all unfolded, something we should have seen but missed; something we should have learned from history. I believe they’ll recollect that the boldest among us didn’t realize the error of their ways until it the moment everything crumbled, and even then, they were too proud to admit it. Future generations will knowingly shake their heads then likely go on to repeat the same mistakes. The lesson they’ll have forgotten is the lesson we seem to have forgotten: the one about greed.
With that, I’ll leave you with the last stanza of T.S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men:”
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper