rant is where the heart is

diaryland: sirilyan.diaryland.com: entry for 2001-09-14 (01:22:00)
In which our plucky young hero ponders switching sides.

And now, opinions.

The more I see of opinions from Canada's left wing the more I wish that Stockwell Day was a viable leader, so I could join his party and be on the opposite side of this century's Neville Chamberlains.

I've always prided myself on being on the opposite side of stupidity, of idiocy, of chilling heartlessness. And every time a Canadian leftist opens their mouth it seems that this means I need to start taking pride in abandoning liberalism forever.

There are thousands of dead Americans and hundreds of dead Canadians, Australians, Britons, Germans, French -- so many nations are among the dead right now.

And I want justice for that.

I don't care what you have to say about globalization. I don't care what you have to say about sanctions against Iraq or Chilean dictatorships or manipulating the price of bananas in Bangkok or any of that garbage. I am tired of people who want to sit the United States down and explain that really, you know, not that we condone this horrible act, uh, but, you do have to admit that after all those nasty-noodle shenaningans over the years you were asking for it, you were overdue for it, and you should just accept that the chickens have come home to roost.

No.

Bullshit.

Perhaps you can make some case, somehow, that the United States was "asking for it". Go ahead and make it, if you want. But there are almost five thousand people who did not "ask for it" in any sense of the word. Their crime wasn't running a sneaker factory in Indonesia or sending money and weapons to Kurdish rebels or (ahem) not deploying troops to kill every Jew in Israel. Their crime was being someone who went to work on the morning of the 11th. Many of them weren't even American, and even if you can somehow twist things around to say that the American dead somehow "asked for it", what the hell did anyone from Germany do? What the hell did anyone from South Korea do? Besides the unthinkable, unconscionable crime of living in New York and going to work on the 11th?

The United States did not do this. President George W. Bush, or William Jefferson Clinton did not do this. Nike or Exxon or the NASDAQ did not do this.

This was done by a bunch of suicidal fanatics who hijacked planes and flew them into buildings.

And until we know who they are, and we know how they will be dealt with, that is all the blame we need. Not just because this is a global tragedy. Not just because this is the beginning of a new breed of war. Not just because almost everyone in North America is no more than three degrees of separation from someone who was killed.

It is all the blame we need because the question "Why?" has a simple answer right now. And that answer is "Because a bunch of suicidal fanatics hijacked airplanes and flew them into buildings."

And please, progressives and liberals of my country, if you feel that just blaming thousands of the world's dead on the people who killed them isn't sufficient, if you feel you need to be a little warbling canary singing that America is not a saint, then I ask of you: shut your goddamn mouth. Now.

I bet you say that rape victims shouldn't have been so bitchy, either.

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