Thursday, October 19, 2006

How Serious Does It Need to Get?

I usually try to avoid talking about politics within the confines of what I write here as it seems to only polarize people (left or right) and lead to name calling and closed-minded blathering. People nowadays have their minds made up and rarely openly think about what is so ingrained into their ideologies that it is worthless to think that I can convince anyone of anything by what I write.

That being said, with the signing in of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to law, I felt compelled to say at least a little something. I have been far from happy with the Bush administration over the last 6 years, as have many people. I've grimaced as the administration has done stupid thing after stupid thing, praying that 2008 would get here as fast as possible. I've tried to be supportive of the soldiers caught up in a senseless occupation overseas. I've tried to bear with our government and the constant scandals. It's been tough, but that's part of the game. The majority spoke and wanted this. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere and giving the government the ability to suspend Habeas Corpus and selectively ignore the articles of the Geneva Convention goes to far.

I do not understand how we got to this point as a nation. Is the average American really that unaware of what is going on politically? Obviously the answer has to be yes, and that answer rings resoundingly throughout our nation as more people care about what happens on the latest episode of Deal or No Deal instead of how our rights are continually being stripped away from us.
One of the few people I actually look up to in the political realm, Keith Olbermann, has said in a beautiful, haunting, and almost poetical nature here what this nation should be feeling. Instead, there is a collective shrug of apathy. What does this country need to happen before we start to care again? A war on our soil? A military state? Another invasion? It seems like no matter how despicable or evil an atrocity is performed, it is resoundingly responded to with silence.

What is more disheartening, the fact that such things as the suspending of Habeas Corpus are allowed to now happen or the sheer amount of apathy put forth by the citizens of this nation? It's a tough call.

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