February 01, 2006
Cindy
Cindy Sheehan, lamenting the state of the nation in the wake of her arrest yesterday:
I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ulitmate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.
Cindy is a true hero, but her anger seems to me misguided. It is in the very nature of any State to crush or marginalise dissenting voices -- and in point of fact, the United States is apparently unique in world history in the degree to which it allows dissenting views to be aired (though not, of course, necessarily heard).
So she shouldn't be angry at the State, really, for simply abiding by its nature. But the question arises: how could hundreds of fellow State-of-the-Union-Address attendees silently gawk at the cops dragging her away from her seat? They could easily have filled the aisles and prevented Cindy's removal from the seating bowl. What, the goons are gonna come in and tear-gas the friggin' State of the Union address shortly before it gets under way?
Sure, sure: a significant number (perhaps even a majority) of the attendees were in favour of her being hauled off of the hallowed grounds. But that is their shame -- not the State's.
A people that doesn't assert its rights probably doesn't deserve them. So how could the teevee-viewing public express its solidarity with Cindy Sheehan? Easy: vote out of office any congressperson who doesn't, in the next day or so, put into the official record his or her disgust at Sheehan's arrest, and promise to never let such a thing happen again.
If we can't even manage that, then we've only ourselves to blame at the erosion of our rights.
Posted by Eddie Tews at February 1, 2006 10:55 AM