Braindrops

The Blissfullness of Ignorance

So the entire world is abuzz over the president's spying revelations, and my very best left-wing friend was on me like white on rice (Do I have that phrased correctly? It does not flow trippingly off the tongue. Or keyboard.), asking whether I thought that governmental eavesdropping was a good thing. (He's been somewhat more tactful than his wife, who, upon discovering that I think the war is a good idea, demanded to know why I wasn't off there fighting. I note that she herself is opposed to rape, and despite this deeply-felt conviction, has yet to actually join the police force and assume the dangers inherent in that role. We're all full of poo, to some extent. Still, nice people.)

So, no, no, I don't. I think the government does a whole bunch of things it shouldn't do, which range from the benignly irritiating (Is it really the government's role to tax me into appropriate behavior by restricting certain parking spaces for the handicapped? The fact that something is nice doesn't imply that government, with its bluntest of cudgels and its infinite self-interest, need be involved in its perpetuation.) to the repressingly stupid (Steel tariffs? The war on drugs? Social freaking Security? The Defense of Marriage Act? Yeesh.). And initial custodial sincerity tends to transform itself, Animal Farm-like, into the preservation of power for its own sake. Even amongst those who speak English, amazingly enough.

Besides, my neighbors talk to their family in Iran all the time, and they would probably prefer to keep the eavesdropping limited to the Iranians censors - and perhaps they'd dispense with them, too, if the situation were to present itself. (Was there actually an attack on Ahmadinejad? Can we have another? Can I ever keep a train of thought for longer than a paragraph? Only The Shadow knows.)

But, I do take some comfort in the knowledge that there are things going on of which I, and the general public, are unaware. People tend to evaluate the merits and effectiveness of the war based upon the very limited pieces of information that surface at Fox or the Grey Lady, and I have long suspected ( Wooo-ooo, aren't yooooou smart?) that, as is appropriate, there's a whole pile of stuff going on that we civvies know nothing about.

Krauthammer's recent apocalyptic concerns may well be valid, and it's entirely possible that threats known and unknown may vastly outnumber our defenses. But it's a tad reassuring to know that our responses aren't as limited as they might appear.

- Moishe Potemkin

Posted by MoisheP at December 17, 2005 07:25 PM | TrackBack