Feeling Politically Fatalistic

Alexander S. Peak

Also available in .pdf.

26 November 2005

[EDITOR’S NOTE:  This piece contains language that may be
offensive to some audiences.  Reader discretion is advised.]

Hopefully I’m just going through a low point.

As I wrote on a political message board in response to claims of expanded war,

I fear the fucking end of America is near.   And it’s the fucking Conservatives that cheer it on.

Where the fuck did all the Patriots go?

Part of me says, “Stop caring, Alex.  Let the morons destroy America.  Let them destroy all that is good.  Just stop caring, just stop fighting it, it’s hopeless.  Become one of the apathetic masses.  Go the way of Winston Smith, go the way of Anakin Skywalker: cave in.  It’ll be easier on you.”

The other part of me feels like, by not caring, I’d be making a metaphoric pact with the devil.  I don’t want humanity to die.  I don’t want America to die.

I don’t know what to do.  I feel so helpless.

I don’t mean to picture all conservatives in a negative light.  And I apologize if the above quote seems to imply I am.  In fact, I recently read a very interesting article from a famous conservative.

To this post, I received only a single well-thought-out reply, which was as follows:

You're going crazy allixe. What are they going to, "end," us with? AKAs and car bombs? HA We have killed 10s of thousands of them and they have killed 2000 of us. Why do you people continue to think we are losing? This just shows how easy you people are persuaded.

Anyways, if you paid attention to what these guys have been saying, you would know they are trying to say we need to get tougher and fight this fight correctly. If we did that we most likely would not have lost 2000 men by now and we would have cleaned up a lot more. But, the left keeps us from doing this only prolonging everything causing more American deaths. If we got tough and went after the entire Middle East we would win in days. But we would have to bomb and fight like we are at war, not like we are policing a region. People would have to die etc, and like they have been saying, they don't think America has the backbone for that any more. But, what sucks is that the terrorist do, and they are not afraid to do it to us, and they probably will. But, by then it will be too late and you same people that are saying we shouldn't do anything will just cry and bitch about how we didn't do enough or how we caused it. The whole while you will be disregarding the last 50 years of terrorism against the U.S. that we have done nothing to deserve, except in the eyes of radical Islam.

9/11 was not perpetrated with AKAs and car bombs.  9/11 was perpetrated with planes hijacked by fanatics convinced that their acts were justified by the years of American intervention in the Middle East.

The problem with war, the insidious problem with war, more so than the fact that people die, is the fact that innocent people die.  Al Qaeda attacked INNOCENT Americans.

Why did they attack innocent Americans?  Clearly, their attack on innocent Americans was unjustified, just as our attacking innocent Middle Easterners would be unjustified.

Despite the fact that their action was unjustified, they did it because they were reasonably opposed to our interventionist policies, and to the fact that we fund dictators in their countries (such as Hussein), and that we fund Israel.  They’re right in all of these things: we SHOULDN’T be in their nations, and we SHOULDN’T be giving money to other nations (regardless of how good or bad they may be).  But they were WRONG in their response.  They attacked innocent Americans.

The result?  Liberty dies plank by plank, as our Constitution is dismantled piece by piece by our very own politicians.  They use the excuse that we must subvert the Constitution for our safety, and in the next breath, they use Orwellian doublethink and claim that they’ve not subverted the Constitution.  This happens as we move further and further away from the nation our founders had envisioned, as bills like the USAPATRIOT Act and the REAL ID Act are passed.

Our response in attacking al Qaeda and the Taliban was a justified response.  After all, we were attacked.  But going after our real enemies wasn’t good enough for the political elite.  They wanted more.  They always want more.  So, they invaded Iraq on unconfirmed evidence.  Then the politicians tip-toed all around the issue without ever addressing the gravity of the situation.

He says I sound crazy.  I feel like a jaded realist.  We’ll never be free from war, we’ll never be free from politicians telling us what to do, when to do it, what to watch, what to eat, who to be.

Wilson claimed that the first World War would be the war to end all wars.  He claimed that it would help spread Democracy around the would.  The war to end all wars?  Sounds nice.  Yet, let’s look at the facts: that war caused every other war we’ve been involved in since.  If that hadn’t happened, the Soviets might not have risen to power.  The Nazis almost-certainly wouldn’t have risen to power.  No holocaust.  No second world war.  No drawing-lines-in-the-sand in the Middle East creating-new-countries.  No Iran bullshit.  No Iraq bullshit.  No Gulf War.  No 9/11.  No Cuban Missile Crisis.  No Vietnam.  No Korean War.

Maybe there would have been other wars in place of these.  Or maybe not.  But had we just kept our resolve not to enter that war, this past century may have been far less bloody.  We might not have had to deal with the Communists.  We probably wouldn’t have had to deal with the Fascists.

But Plato was right.  The only men who see an end to war are those that die.  Freedom does not always win.  Liberty does not also win.  Sometimes Commies take over.  Sometimes Fascists.  Politicians never give up their iron grip on us.  We’re their Play-Doh, and they like to play.

America will end.  It’s inevitable.  The only question is when.

The terrorists are definitely not justified in attacking innocent civilians.  But you and I both know damn well they will.  That’s what makes them terrorists.  And we both know what will drive them to it: anger over the things I mentioned previously: our giving money to the dictators that oppress them, our giving money to Israel, and most importantly our being in their land.

And of course these are legitimate grievances they have.  But their response will not be a legitimate one—it will be a reactionary, extremist one: they will attack more innocent Americans.  And this will lead our politicians to seize more power, and start more wars.

And that’s life…as we know it.  That’s the vicious cycle known as politics.  That’s it.

Bush has admitted that his war on terror will probably go on forever.  What more is there to say?  I love Big Brother.