Yesterday Claire wrote a post in which she speculated on “The Worst Thing About the NSA Revelations.” And the problem developed, as the post unfolded, that there are so many things to hate about it one hardly knows where to begin. Or where to stop. In trying to find the worst thing, Claire settled for the sheer smirking ‘whatcha gonna do about it?’ effrontery of the whole business.
And I concede, that is really galling. But it doesn’t quite get to my “worst thing.”
Peggy Noonan, of all people, put her finger on it for me this morning.
The NSA is only one of many recent revelations and events … There was a doctor in Philadelphia who routinely killed full-term babies for years, and no one wanted to stop him for years. It got out of hand—he was collecting body parts in jars—and he was finally arrested, tried, sent to prison. … Those who watch closely say there are more such clinics, still up and operating. There’s a bill in Congress now to limit abortions after the fifth month, the age at which hospitals can keep babies alive. … [I]t’s probably going nowhere. It’s been called anti-woman.
It’s like that. That’s the worst thing. Not that the two stories have anything to do with one another, really, but that the reaction – MY reaction – to both stories is a weary, hopeless sigh. We’re surrounded by horrors: A doctor who practices open infanticide, a government that blatantly violates its own charter, abuses its own citizens in the most fundamental ways, but they said it’s legal so it’s okay — and we can’t even get worked up about it any more. In fact most people seem to like it this way.
Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine that it’s just a dystopian dream. A dream that my primitive cerebrum keeps trying to wake up from. But it isn’t. And that’s the worst thing.
Yes, that’s really about the worst. The idea that so many people accept anything that is “legal” as somehow also moral and right… and anything that isn’t “legal” as automatically wrong – with little or no thought unless the “illegal” thing gores their own particular ox.
And then I ask… By what legitimate authority? http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/?page_id=1294
Complicated by not-uncommon opinion that Ben Ghazi is that old actor in black and white movies; Eric Holder rcould be a reserve shortstop for the Cubs; Martin Luther freed the slaves and the Bill of Rights is a list of shit they gotta let you do in skul.