Mercy Not Sacrifice
Well-Known Member
Let's go back in time ten years. George W. Bush--remember that guy? Yeah, him. He had only been in office for about half a year after "winning" the most controversial US presidential election in history. But after all those fireworks, he really didn't do much: In fact, up through September 10, 2001, it seemed as if his presidency might well become much ado about nothing. How to control the masses? How to get them to do whatever he wanted? I think we all know the answer to that one. Bush was able to get away with starting two wars, trashing the Constitution, skirting every environmental regulation known to man, skyrocketing the deficit, cutting taxes for the rich, creating the housing bubble, building the military-industrial complex to unprecedented sizes, and destroying our reputation around the globe. How? He kept us preoccupied with terrorism.
To Bush and the rest of the neocons, terrorism was the greatest evil on the planet. You hated terrorists and wanted to bomb the hell out of them, you were good. You were against that, you were bad. It was a cut-and-dry, absolute, no-questions-asked mindset. Terrorism = bad, "patriotism" = good. Violence against women, poverty, global warming--none of that stuff really mattered. That, in my opinion, was the real problem: Distracting Americans from the real problems of the day. See, that was the catch. Yeah terrorism was bad, but how come it suddenly started mattering on September 11, 2001? Was not terrorism alive and well at least a decade prior? In case anyone forgot, we had already been hit by TWO large-scale terrorist attacks: The World Trade Center bombing, and the Oklahoma City bombing. But that's just the thing: As bad as they were, if we include 9/11, we're only talking three incidents. Three awful incidents, yes, but statistically speaking, their combined danger was far, far lesser than day-to-day threats. But too many people were scared of terrorism to figure that out.
Flash forward to today. We are dealing with a problem that shares many parallels with terrorism: It is a real danger, but its short-term risks are often grossly exaggerated. To even suggest that this problem should not be attacked without mercy or prejudice is to risk being tarred and feathered in some circles. And as always, when fear rules the day, any proposed solutions to the alleged problem usually target poor people. That alleged problem is the US debt. Just like terrorism back in the early 2000s, the debt seems to be the "problem" that conservatives in the 2010s will not let go. And like with terrorism, they will not let facts get in their way, choosing instead to distort, exaggerate, and in some cases outright ignore the truth.
There is one major difference between terrorism and the debt, though: Unlike terrorism, which in part started abroad--we had some domestic terrorists here, too--the debt is a creation entirely of our own. While Clinton and the Republican Congress were finally able to tame the Reagan deficits back in the 90s, Bush and the Republican Congress skyrocketed them. Then Obama and the Democratic Congress inherited them. But this raises a key question, a question I have asked conservatives several times, a question that no conservative has ever given me a straight answer to: Why did the US debt suddenly become a huge problem on January 20, 2009? I mean really. The Tea Party, which oh-so-loves to hate Obama, was completely AWOL when Bush destroyed the Clinton surplus and instituted a deficit. The Tea Party didn't blink an eyelash when Bush exploded the size of government. And now all of a sudden they're p***** off? Puh-lease. The debt is a smokescreen, nothing more. You think there would be this much hoopla over the debt if we had a white president? You don't think this has anything to do with it? I do. In fact, I think that's the real source of their problem. Just as it was with terrorism. After all, would we have hated Iraqis and Saudis so much if they had just been white, heterosexual, American, conservative Christians?
To Bush and the rest of the neocons, terrorism was the greatest evil on the planet. You hated terrorists and wanted to bomb the hell out of them, you were good. You were against that, you were bad. It was a cut-and-dry, absolute, no-questions-asked mindset. Terrorism = bad, "patriotism" = good. Violence against women, poverty, global warming--none of that stuff really mattered. That, in my opinion, was the real problem: Distracting Americans from the real problems of the day. See, that was the catch. Yeah terrorism was bad, but how come it suddenly started mattering on September 11, 2001? Was not terrorism alive and well at least a decade prior? In case anyone forgot, we had already been hit by TWO large-scale terrorist attacks: The World Trade Center bombing, and the Oklahoma City bombing. But that's just the thing: As bad as they were, if we include 9/11, we're only talking three incidents. Three awful incidents, yes, but statistically speaking, their combined danger was far, far lesser than day-to-day threats. But too many people were scared of terrorism to figure that out.
Flash forward to today. We are dealing with a problem that shares many parallels with terrorism: It is a real danger, but its short-term risks are often grossly exaggerated. To even suggest that this problem should not be attacked without mercy or prejudice is to risk being tarred and feathered in some circles. And as always, when fear rules the day, any proposed solutions to the alleged problem usually target poor people. That alleged problem is the US debt. Just like terrorism back in the early 2000s, the debt seems to be the "problem" that conservatives in the 2010s will not let go. And like with terrorism, they will not let facts get in their way, choosing instead to distort, exaggerate, and in some cases outright ignore the truth.
There is one major difference between terrorism and the debt, though: Unlike terrorism, which in part started abroad--we had some domestic terrorists here, too--the debt is a creation entirely of our own. While Clinton and the Republican Congress were finally able to tame the Reagan deficits back in the 90s, Bush and the Republican Congress skyrocketed them. Then Obama and the Democratic Congress inherited them. But this raises a key question, a question I have asked conservatives several times, a question that no conservative has ever given me a straight answer to: Why did the US debt suddenly become a huge problem on January 20, 2009? I mean really. The Tea Party, which oh-so-loves to hate Obama, was completely AWOL when Bush destroyed the Clinton surplus and instituted a deficit. The Tea Party didn't blink an eyelash when Bush exploded the size of government. And now all of a sudden they're p***** off? Puh-lease. The debt is a smokescreen, nothing more. You think there would be this much hoopla over the debt if we had a white president? You don't think this has anything to do with it? I do. In fact, I think that's the real source of their problem. Just as it was with terrorism. After all, would we have hated Iraqis and Saudis so much if they had just been white, heterosexual, American, conservative Christians?
