It's making me crazy. The above is an excerpt from a conversation I had with a friend of mine who semi-cares about what's going on. Ready for her response?
We've been brought up that way
I sat slack jawed when I read that. But, as angry as those six words made me, it really is true. We've been brought up in an apathetic society.
I remember my Freshman year on my school newspaper. Being the "Scum on the bottom of the totem pole" (thanks, Cordray) I never got to write any of my own stories, but was doomed to create the paper's website (which did not include profanity, and was thus, not nearly as "colorful" as this one) and to edit the other writer's stories (because I was then, and am still, a grammar freak). I was proofreading a story by one of the more "colorful" writers on staff, and honestly couldn't understand his outrage at the lack of understanding and care on the part of the student body in regards to the goings on of the world.
Four years later and I completely sympathize. No one cares anymore. I bring it up, and the cute little emoticons come up, rolling their eyes at me. And then mine come back, punching the eye-roller in the eye. It's the only form of release I can find. I talk myself blue in the face, trying to make people care.
Each of those things at the top affect us. Maybe not directly, but somehow, they do. If Asscroft starts demanding private records from one hospital, what's to stop him from looking at the rest of our records? What's to stop Bush from writing all ten of the commandments into the Constitution?
This intrusion on privacy isn't just about medical records. Since 9/11, I've heard countless people utter the phrase, "Well, if you have nothing to hide, why does it matter?" I have jaw problems from dropping it so often. It matters because the people who founded this country thought it mattered. It matters because you can't sacrifice your INALIENABLE RIGHTS to catch supposed terrorists. It matters because of the boiling frog analogy.
If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. However, if you put it in lukewarm water, and gradually turn it up, he won't know the difference, and you will be eating frog for dinner.
Allowing these men to trample over the civil liberties is absurd, but the fact that so many people don't care is frightening.
I can't make you care. As much as I'd love to be able to wave a magic wand and make the country (and the world) see the light, I can't.
But when things start to suck for you, because you don't have any of those rights you let them strip from you, when you can't breathe without the government knowing exactly how much carbon dioxide you are releasing into the atmosphere, when you check out an islamic book to finally educate yourself and are immediately red-flagged as a possible terrorists and your calls are being tapped, if you didn't vote, if you didn't do something, you don't get to complain. When you're pissed about the current state of the economy and the fact that you can't get a job, if you willingly didn't vote, I don't want to hear it.
Bush has been in office for almost 4 years. Hear this: Ignorance is only bliss for so long.
