[Vision2020] [Bulk] Important Bill Maher Message

[Paul Rumelhart]

I meant to reply to this earlier.  This is a very important point.  For 
those that haven't watched it or can't watch it, Bill Maher shows some 
of the devastation from the train wreck at Chatsworth and of Hurricane 
Ike.  He then makes the point that if this was the result of a terrorist 
attack, we would have freaked as a country (my words).

This is very true, and the point has been made here before.  This caused 
me to think about something I've wanted to mention here before, but 
couldn't get the words together for it.  Our reaction to 9/11 as a 
country was in a way schizophrenic.  We reacted with extreme fear, and 
we reacted with extreme "macho"-ness.  Those two reactions seem 
contradictory to me, but I think the one comes from the other.  Being 
"macho" is often done because of fear, or as a reaction to a fearful 
situation.

I would have liked us to have been truly macho in our response to 9/11.  
We could have taken the attitude of "You want a piece of me?  Come and 
get it!"  Instead of taking away liquids, lighters and nail clippers, we 
could have given every person that boards a plane a big Rambo knife.  
Just try to hijack a plane after 9/11 when everyone on board has a big 
knife - even if you happen to have one yourself.

I'm kidding about giving knives out on planes, but you get the idea.

So, instead of being the person that gets shoved by someone who shoves 
back and stands their ground, we were the bully that gets hit, runs off 
crying, and then pounds on some little kid we don't happen to like when 
the opportunity presents itself.  We justify it to ourselves because he 
resembled the guy that shoved us, and we got to steal his lunch money.

Thinking that the name Barack Hussein Obama is an insulting name is a 
symptom of that fearful pretend macho-ness that has swept us down the 
path of shamefulness on the world stage.  It's time to put our foot back 
on the path we were originally on, don't you think?

Paul

Chasuk wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmCC_jasq0E
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