It’s time to stop being afraid.
Thereare Americans who are so terrified of their lives being taken byterrorists that they are hoping the US government will use nuclearweapons to destroy “the Muslim enemy.” The justifications concoctedfor the use of nuclear bombs against Japanese civilian populations havehad their effect. There are millions of Americans who wish “their”government would kill everyone that “their” government has demonized.
WhenI tell these people that they will die of old age without ever seeing aterrorist, they think I am insane. Don’t I know that terrorists areeverywhere in America? That’s why we have airport security andhomeland security. That’s why the government is justified in breakingthe law to spy on citizens without warrants. That’s why the governmentis justified to torture people in violation of US law and the GenevaConventions. If we don’t torture them, American cities will go up inmushroom clouds. Dick Cheney tells us this every week.
Terrorists are everywhere. “They hate us for our freedom and democracy.” When I tell
America’s alarmed citizens that the US has as many stolen elections asany country and that our civil liberties have been eroded by “the waron terror” they lump me into the terrorist category. Theyautomatically conflate factual truth with anti-Americanism.
Thesame mentality prevails with regard to domestic crime. Most Americans,including, unfortunately, juries, assume that if the police make a caseagainst a person and a prosecutor prosecutes it, the defendant isguilty. Most Americans are incapable of believing that police or aprosecutor would frame an innocent person for career or bureaucraticreasons or out of pure meanness.
Yet, it happens all the time. Indeed, it is routine.