Political Rhetoric Or Insanity?

by John Hawkins | January 15, 2003 11:46 pm

Political Rhetoric Or Insanity?: I was reading the “Required Reading of 2002” on A Small Victory[1] and I ran across an article written by someone named Ezrael from back in November. Here’s the super kooky part of the article[2] that I’d normally slap in the ACPOTI section…

“America, you will conform, or you will be rounded up and shot. You will conform, or you will be named a traitor and placed in a cell with other enemy combatants. A company named Halliburton, once run by the current Vice President, will be contracted to build cells at the Guantanamo Bay prison-camp on a military base in Cuba. America, your government will act to prevent a lawsuit filed on behalf of those raped and murdered on the facilities of an American company because its desire for Indonesian oil will outweigh its concern for the victims. If you protest this action by your government, you will be aiding the terrorists, of course. If George Bush comes to your graduation and you don’t clap like a seal on amphetamines for him, you will be aiding the terrorists. Unless everything you do is personally vetted by the government, you may well be aiding the terrorists. Did you spend enough money this month to help lift our economy? No? Are you aiding the terrorists by being thrifty? I hope you don’t end up as an enemy combatant somewhere.

It doesn’t matter, ultimately, what you say. Sooner or later, you will say something they don’t approve of. You will be someone they don’t approve of. Your sexuality, your politics, your race, your creed…eventually, you will not be who they want you to be. You will be too interested in how they and their friends gouged you and caused California’s energy crisis, for just one example. You will question them on something, and then you will be declared an enemy combatant, America.

And then you will be rounded up and shot. By then, I expect I will already be dead, and so I will not be able to do much about it.”

Now I understand that sometimes in the heat of the moment, people may go a little overboard on the political rhetoric. That does happen — but, at a certain point, you have to wonder what’s really going through someone’s mind when they write something like this. I mean do you honestly want to know what I thought after I read this? I thought the guy was crazy, nuts, insane. That’s not rhetoric either — I think that if this guy really believes what he’s writing, he’s so out of touch with reality that he needs to see a psychologist.

If this guy were some lone kook, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But the truth is, the sort of rhetoric is all over the place on the left. By this sort of “rhetoric” I mean things you’d literally have to be a little unbalanced to believe.

If you think Republicans really want to emulate the Nazis, are Fascists, that John Ashcroft is going to start locking people up in concentration camps because they’re Democrats, etc, your nuts. Yes, I mean you are so out of touch with reality that you probably need professional help.

In one sense, all these weirdos are funny. Sure, it’s amusing to read about some bunch of kooks from the Democratic Underground who think Bush killed Paul Wellstone or that they’re going to be dragged away in handcuffs for backing a Gore Presidential run in 2004, but in another sense it’s scary. It’s scary because people who are crazy enough to believe that sort of stuff would actually be dangerous if they acted on what they believe. For example, if the US were actually taken over by a Nazi-like regime that suspended the Constitution and started throwing all their political opponents into gulags, I’d say the moral thing to do would be to pick up a gun and try do something about it.

Do you see what I’m trying to get across here? The only thing worse than endlessly repeating a bunch of outlandish propaganda is actually believing the outlandish propaganda you’re spouting. That’s a lesson a significant chunk of the left on the net should take to heart.