Disco at the ICBM Silo!
You can't hold a rave on top of an ICBM silo, I checked. It turns out that certain areas of strategic value to the United States are exempted from the inalienable rights of Americans to get up, get down, and boogie. It gets worse! Women in Florida are no longer allowed to show their bodies on boats adjacent to Navy ships to get sailor's hats. It's something about the Coast Guard not believing in the security awareness of Squids in rut, or the increased chances of terrorist attacks. Motorcyclists are not being allowed do drag race F-14's like in the movie Top Gun, either.
Even worse, the traditional mosh pit and street theatre that calls itself a protest rally can no longer be located alongside the President's route. Some people are getting up in arms about this because they feel their
First Amendment rights are being violated. As somebody who has watched protest rallies in downtown Portland, OR for a number of years, my response is that the protesters are full of crap. They do not want to speak with the President or petition for redress of grievances, they want to threaten him and be empowered by the threat of rioting. They care not at all about the issues of the day or the performance of the person in office; they care about being a pack animal that causes others to fear them.
Wherever the President of the United States goes, that area is of strategic value to the United States of America. His staff, their vehicles, and the processes of securing the President are all of strategic value to the country, even if you do not like the current office holder. It is reasonable and prudent to separate that area from the people who are stating that they view the President as a greater threat than the terrorists who would attack him. I watched a man carry a child into the front of a crowd opposite the riot police and not leave the area when the child was in danger in order to protest the president. I have no respect for the probity and restraint of protesters in my home town these days, and neither did my father.
My father was a sixties radical minister who was arrested multiple times for registering blacks to vote in the south, organizing migrant workers in California, and organizing a free speech event in a free speech area of campus. I may not be an expert on what is and is not a violation of First Amendment law, but my father was. My father worked to communicate important information to people who were unaware of grave problems with this country. My father worked to help people avoid compulsory induction into the military during the draft. My father worked during a time of government suppression of dissent and presidential enemies' lists. He worked to ensure that his children were safe from the dangers of his moral decisions, but we grew up knowing that the FBI was trying to arrest my father illegally.
I've watched the current protesters with a critical eye and I talked about them with my father before he died last June. He had no respect for them. They did not have a coherent message, they had no respect for non-violence, the ones with solidarity did not communicate their beliefs, and there was more interest in making a spectacle than making a change. If they had a message worth relating, they should not need to be violent to communicate it. There is no history of positive change occurring as a result of mob violence, although there is a vivid history of positive change occurring due to hard work. That the current crop of activists has abandoned the methods that are successful at bringing positive change spoke volumes to my father about what they were interested in.
I'm not particularly sorry that you can't hold a disco on an ICBM silo, sail your boat to within hat-toss range of a destroyer, drag race a fighter jet, or otherwise endanger national security for personal fulfillment. There are other arenas where you can party, expose yourself, drive fast, or speak freely about the president without risking anything but your own dignity. Further, the absence of concern for either the rights of others or the success of their actions of the current crop of protesters does not warrant their inclusion in all areas. If you were security, would you let this guy backstage to a concert?
Why would you let him near the leadership of the United States?
Help Wanted: Augean Stables Cleaner
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For the fifth labor, Eurystheus ordered Hercules to clean up King Augeas' stables." After the stables were cleaned, vile and bitter recriminations followed, the ruler of a European nation refused to fulfill his obligations, and the value of the work was disqualified for technical reasons by churlish international arbiters. Hmmm…history may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes this time. The lesson we should learn from this legend is not that accomplishing heroic labors never gets you any slack from the Europeans, it's that letting filth pile up indefinitely requires heroic effort to fix.
There are some who still claim that the stables would have gotten clean if diplomacy had been given more time. The only discernable results in Iraq of twelve years of diplomacy were more ruthless human rights abuses and a greater degree of polish in Saddam's palaces. More time for diplomacy was never going to provide the people of Iraq the tools and opportunity they needed to become successful themselves. More time for diplomacy was not going to stop the plastic shredders getting fed people. More time for diplomacy only made the filth deeper and more pervasive.
Now Geo. Bush & Co. never promised to clean up Iraq in one day, regardless of what the current Augeas' may claim. It was always about sticking with the process until the job was done. It's been hard work and will continue to be hard work. Unlike the legend, the Coalition is not using clever tricks. The methods of cleaning up Iraq have also been a lot more environmentally friendly; at least the people
downstream think so.
The phrase "cleaning the Augean Stables" is used to note a task that is incredibly difficult, tedious, thankless, and probably smelly. It should probably be noted that the original task was largely due to bad planning and intractable adherence to previous methods. Without devolving into a dissertation on the downfalls of centralized agriculture, there are some points to consider. Maintaining the persistence of failed systems is a position taken by those who either get a direct benefit from the system's failure, those whose enemies are harmed by it, or those who value form over reality. Fixing Iraq is a process that threatens a number of entrenched interests. Success in Iraq makes it more likely that other Herculean tasks will be attempted and accomplished.
Many people no longer acknowledge the possibility of heroism in their worldview. Many influential people have such a limited definition of heroism that they openly deny heroic accomplishments despite compelling evidence. For some this is a matter of maintaining priorities, for most it is a matter of ignoring the failure of their worldview. Causing a psychotic break from reality for the movers and shakers in Hollywood and the media was not Geo. Bush & Co.'s primary agenda, and it must be said that such things were pretty common well before 9/11. The extreme contortions that the anti-war mob must go through to say anything positive is solved with Gordian-knot simplicity; they rarely say anything that is not an attack. I suppose this makes them ghastly dinner companions, but once again; such things were pretty common well before Iraq was invaded.
Another key difference between Geo. Bush & Co. and Hercules is the key matter of assistance. It makes a better story if one guy does the work, but with really big tasks, quality goes way up with committed help. One reason I refer to Geo. Bush & Co. as such is because the President reminds me of a really effective businessman who has a great staff and strong relations with other firms locally and abroad. Despite the chattering class's accusations of unilateralism, the invasion of Iraq was accomplished with a lot of help. Further, it called into question the value of a cause that would be acceptable to all. Do we really want the help of genocidal fascists in overthrowing genocidal fascists? In WWII, we absolutely needed Stalin's help in defeating Hitler. But not using the demon's help means not paying the demon's price. It looks very much like Geo. Bush & Co. got all the help they could afford, and did the job without those who asked the demon's price.
There are other stables that need cleaning. Here is the situation that is going to put many a Beverly Hills psychoanalyst's kid through college; Geo. Bush & Co. does not look afraid of the shovel. Perhaps it is that the President himself takes care of his body and goes to bed at a reasonable hour. Perhaps it is because Laura Bush is more interested in the health of her husband than the holy grail of a national health care plan. Perhaps it is easier at the end of the day; to have acted with integrity is restorative, even if the job was smelly and the judges of the work were unappreciative. That Col. Moammar Gadhafi was willing to
clean his own stables, rather than have somebody do it for him speaks volumes as to the effectiveness of a willing shovel. It may very well be that the task of this greatest nation in the world for the next century will be to clean up the filth that has been allowed to accumulate and prevent it from occurring. I am convinced that we are up to the task and that there's no better work worth doing.
Update:
This is just too good not to link:
Solomania gets the facts, Jack!
Samuel has some nice things to say in amplification at
Roger L. Simon's place.
