Gotta be shrill some days...

[elfs]

Sometimes, you just have to point at something with outrage. Yesterday, Glenn Beck was interviewing Michael Scheuer, a former CIA official, and during the conversation Scheuer said this:

The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Oh. My. Gods. How stupid do you have to be to earnestly hope for the deaths of millions of Americans? Especially when you're doing so to further your own vision of what America should be, your own political point of view? How different is Scheuer's pronunciation that "our only hope..." is mass murder, from Osama's declaration that America's only hope lies in mass conversion to Islam or death?

Good grief, these people are insane, aren't they?

Adam Serwer has it exactly right: "This is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying subprime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States."

Comments

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Yes, this needs to be publicized far and wide.

Diversity of Viewpoint

[(Anonymous)]

I think that Michael Scheuer, unfortunately, is right. And I don't think that Scheuer is "hoping" for millions of deaths, but commenting on the stupidity of the voters lately and saying that a wake-up call of unprecedented proportions is the only way out of this.

Maybe when your energy bills double with no effect on either the climate or other countries actions - except that they become even cheaper in relationship to the USA due to lower energy costs and cause more job losses by luring more manufacturing away - the average American might decide that Cap & Trade isn't all that wonderful - but I'm not counting on it.

Or maybe the average voter will realize just how much Obama outright lied to get elected and get pissed off about it. (If your taxes aren't higher, and the dollar not badly inflated, in 2 years I will quite happily retract those words.) Or how fraudulent Al Franken's election was when there were more votes tallied than voters who appeared at the polls in some districts. (He reminds me of a particular - and quite excellent - Murphy Brown episode circa 1995 where a horribly unqualified Republican was elected to the U.S. House by riding in on the coattails of the Contract with America movement.)

I, for one, do not want the USA to become like Europe. If I wanted that I'd move to Europe. And in your situation so close to our northern border I cannot believe that you are unaware of just how many Canadians who can afford to do so come south for their medical care and pay for it entirely out of their own pocket. The most financially healthy hospitals in the country are in your north-west nook of the woods because of this.

I am also surprised that you listen/watch to Glenn Beck. He would not have seemed to be your cup of tea.

--DB_Story

re: technoshaman

[(Anonymous)]

technoshaman,

If you're looking for a Flame War get out your asbestos suit.

I don't mind someone listening to all sides. If you do, you probably listen to FoxNews among other sources because every unbiased study shows that they are the most centrist of all the major news outlets.

As for Glenn Beck, along with Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage are staunch Independents who haven't been shy about ripping conservatives when they deserve it as well as liberals.

But for you to snivelingly insinuate that only your side holds the moral high ground and is truly open-minded about issues is so blatantly wrong that disingenuous doesn't even begin to describe it.

--DB_Story

P.S. If my blog hosted user comments (it doesn't) I would be happy to see spirited debate being held on it.

[bikerwalla.livejournal.com]

"Yes, what we need is another war. We miss the righteous anger we used to have. We miss the blank check Americans handed us to make evil go away. All we do now is try to make the world a better place. WHAT EVER!!! We're in a depression and we need to have a war like our granddads did to lift us out of that depression!"

That's how they think. They think the Great Depression was cured by World War II. They think that if only we'd have had a little more guts, we'd have won Vietnam, and that because we didn't win Vietnam, we had an energy crisis, thanks to the libruls.

You're right: they've never been serious about governance. If they think that the administration in power is giving us bread and circuses, while the last administration had to manufacture the causes of war to hide their malfeasance, well, someone's wearing blinders.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I really don't think the country's on a good path. The Republicans would have us on a far, far worse path.

Anyone who seriously thinks that America would be improved by detonating a mass effect weapon in an American city is a dangerous lunatic. Full stop.

The detonation of one nuclear weapon in a US city would fill every critical care bed and burn unit in the country with the survivors who lived that long.

I've seen a badly burned person. Multiply by thousands. I've seen dead bodies. Multiply by thousands. I've seen a child with major trauma. Multiply by thousands.

There is some truth to the idea that Americans have become too complacent in a lot of ways. However mass death is not a wake up call, just as the bodies of our citizens on September 11th were not Bin Laden's stationery.

[polydad.livejournal.com]

We've long known they're insane; I think they may have just crossed over into legally treasonous, as well. "Advocating the overthrow of the government by use of force..." Advocating overthrow of the *people* amounts to the same thing, near as I can tell.

Your thoughts?

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

We need to stop mincing words here. Glen Beck is a traitor. He actively supported those who tried to destroy the Republic. Now that the people have shown those blackguards the door, Beck and his ilk want to see the American people suffer. They make reviving the House Unamerican Activities Committee look almost like a good idea.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

It had to happen, I guess. He doesn't think of Americans as people, any more than he thinks of Those Other People In Countries You BombTM as people.

So, detonate a bomb here to push the populace to vote his way there - it's all tokens on a board.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

"Unpatriotic is a public health care plan."

I'm Canadian, and I want to jizz all over Adam Serwer's face for saying this.

What, pray tell, does public health care have to do with patriotism? Where in the law or the constitution does it say that "thou shalt be Capitalist?"

I suppose it would also be unpatriotic to not shoot the homeless as well. In America, anyone who can't make it on their own deserves to die.