Sometimes the planets align themselves and the world benefits. Today is one of those days. Janet Reno concedes defeat in Florida. It is good to see someone of this caliber finally consigned to the ashheap of history. For those concerned about John Ashcroft, he has yet to show up at anyone's door with guns blazing. But then it was always for the children, those incinerated and the one sent back to Cuba.
For those who want to whine about the voting irregularities in Florida, it is interesting to see that again the screwups are in counties controlled by the Dems and this was a DEMOCRATIC primary. Usually the GOP is not involved in those. Anyway, McBride seems to be a better candidate than Reno against Bush. At least he has a chance in Miami.
posted by Larry at 3:57 PM
Dear Osama and Omar;
I hope I can call you Osama and Omar. I feel like I know you and besides, you don’t seem worthy of any honorifics. I have heard a lot about the both of you over the last year and a lot from you, but not much from Osama for several months now. But you Omar, I heard last week that you are saying that my friends and family should be prepared for something big. Well, even though I don’t think we could ever be friends, I think I should give you a little friendly advice.
If you decide to do something big, it had better be really big. Don’t do a little thing like driving a plane into a building or even detonating a chemical, biological or nuclear bomb in one of our cities. You see that will really aggravate us. So far most of us have gone on with our lives after you last “big thing”since we trust our leaders to do the right thing. Now I am sure that you hear the things that senators, congressmen and private citizens say and from you frame of reference, you think that we have major disagreements about what should be done to you. Not really. Most of us think that you should be killed as soon as possible. We just disagree about how we should go about doing that.
Of course you may have heard that we have a group of people who think that we should shoulder the blame for what you did. Now I understand that you would never abide such things as dissent if you were in charge, but we find dissent to be useful. Our dissenters usually do no real harm, it is so cumbersome to silence them and sometime one of them actually comes up with something useful, but I would recommend that you not bet too much on our dissenters helping you out when do your “big thing”. They will suddenly find that blaming the America is not the thing to do.
I should tell you about my friends and family. There are about 280 million of them. They come from everywhere on Earth. Why, there are even people who may have been your next door neighbors a few years back. Remember, they were the ones who didn’t bow and stoop when you passed by, the ones you had your eye on for when you got the power to do something about people who disagreed with you. Well too bad, but they came here just as such people have been doing for 400 hundred years. The funny thing is most of us are descended from people you wouldn’t like. You really would not have cared for George Washington, Daniel Boone, Abe Lincoln or Martin Luther King. You see, they fought for freedom for themselves and others, something you could never understand. You probably can’t understand this either, but few of my friends and family spend very much time thinking about you. We are looking at the future and you are the past. Our President tells us to go out and shop and you see a weak, depraved people. Wrong, what we are is a strong, vibrant culture. When my friend and family buy things, they help to provide work for others so that they can have food, clothing and shelter. They use the money they earn to support their churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. They support their schools, donate to charities and send more of their private wealth to help people around the world than any other nation.
Now we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about you, but do your “big thing” and we will start thinking about you. In fact, that is about all we will think about. See, in our system we trust our leaders to do the right thing and usually don’t push them too hard, but anything else from you and we will push really hard. Your friends in governments around the world will not sleep well at night. In fact, they will soon not be the government. My 280 million friends and family compose a technologically advanced nation of live and let live citizens. If we have to forego the let live part in order to have the live part, then we will do so.
You speak of the billion or so Moslems around the world. We all know that the majority do not support you and even if they did, they are nothing when compared to the might and reach of the Germans and Japanese 60 years ago. TheGermand, Japanese and Soviets scared us. You do not. When you decide to start educating your people so that they can build warships, warplanes, tanks and other weapons, then we will worry. But you can’t do that can you? That would go against everything you stand for. An educted people would never listen to the like sof you. You are left with your terrorist weapons that you use against civilians in cowardly, sneak attacks. You are little people with big dreams and get rich quick schemes that are doomed to fail.
So if you are going to do something big, be sure to make it really big because the cost is going to be really, really big for you and your friends.
To paraphrase a famous American, “Don’t make us angry, you wouldn’t like us angry”.
posted by Larry at 12:34 PM
