National Insanity

Those who would give up a little liberty
for a little security would lose both and deserve neither
--Benjamin Franklin

This is supposed to be a happy occasion.
Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who
--Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

robot trainers earn their pay
as mutant kids go out to play
it's such a pretty pretty day
with orange nights and days of gray
--Cold Life, Ministry
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Further reflections on the Tucson shooting, our violent culture and rush to abdicate civil liberties, and blindness to the implications of both:

Democracy requires citizen participation in what is already a strained relationship, as the electorate is far removed from the reality of its governance. A probable reactionary security protocol will further isolate the electorate from the elected. The more isolated the voters, the less informed their decisions; the more meaningless the gesture of voting.

To what purpose or benefit are we becoming a security state? Our leaders could be as delusional as the wanton shooters in our midst and we would not know, and the shooters are not some unimagined aberration; they represent the fringe just as the elected generally represent the privileged. There is no solution to this bifurcation.

The U.S. will close the barn door once again. But whatever the reaction, crazies will always breach the perimeter because they are unpredictable and there is no 100% security posture if we chose to remain a free society. If we became secure we would no longer be free. Safe, maybe, but not free. Further, the threat would have to be clearly identified: Safe from what?

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is supposedly keeping us safe from crusaders, as law enforcement protects us from criminals, but how to protect ourselves from crazies? It seems we will always be vulnerable to crazies, whether they be the lone desperado or entire posses, like the gang in the George W. Bush administration which fostered indefensible invasions, torture, secret prisons, illegal renditions, et. al. Taking this view, the acts of the lone gunman pale in comparison to the institutional insanity to which we are collectively held hostage.

What we sow, we reap. We vote symbolically and get screwed realistically, and we are so distracted and hypocritical we weep for the apparent aberrant violence while giving a pass to the institutional.