Yoda thinks Bin Laden is winning
October 28, 2008 by Patrick
Filed under .Articles, Patrick's plog
This article is cloaked under a semi-funny title, but it is actually a pretty serious topic… Just a warning.
I want to talk about what makes us who we are for a minute. I will try to keep it to the point. Here is the premise: we have a few fundamental values that define us, as western societies. Freedom, equality, fairness… These are the ideas that world defining documents like the French “Human Rights Declaration” and the American Bill of Rights were written to protect. And the moment we start losing them, we start losing our soul. We start turning to “the dark side”.
Here comes the sadly funny part: millions of us have watched the Star Wars movies, and we’ve all heard the wise reflexion of the old green little Jedi master guy.
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
Everyone knows that line. Yet no one seems to understand how it relates to the attacks of September 11th 2001. Are you afraid? Are you sacrificing what they attacked you for? Then you are giving “them” what they wanted in the first place.
Indeed, this is how they win. They don’t win by killing us; they’ll never kill us all. Or even, as horrible as it sounds, they’ll never kill “enough” of us. They aren’t the nazis, they simply don’t have the military might to wipe us out. Instead, they win by making us afraid (terrorism, anyone?) and letting that fear make us do things like sacrificing what most precious thing we hold.
I’ll stop here; I don’t want to turn this article into a political debate. What I would like, rather, is that next time someone tells you the fight against terror demands you sacrifice a little part of your freedom, ask yourself this:
“Am I agreeing because it’s an appropriate response?
Or am I letting fear and anger dictate the answer?”
If it’s the latter, you’re turning into Darth Vader, and the Bin Laden is grinning in his cave…
We are nowhere near “defeat” here. I know we are still “ourselves”. But I think the horror of years past might have taken us on a dangerous path, and it’s never to early to realize it. They hate us for our freedom, we keep hearing. And it’s true. And we shouldn’t surrender our freedom to anyone… Especially not them.
WoW. I just..I never thought of it that way. But your exactly right, Patrick. That’s all I can really say on this point.
i totally agree, patrick. well said!
Wow.
Very nicely said.
Here’s to hoping our leaders recognize and act on this. It’ll take an act of will on their part to be willing to be leaders and NOT act out of fear and follow those of their constituency who WANT them to act out of fear… lashing out at any and all around them that look vaguely suspicious.
We elect leaders hoping they’ll lead and fearing they’ll represent… the worst of us. At least that’s how I feel at times. Representative government should represent us at our best and not our worst.
Hey Patrick — that’s exactly what I thought when they were first proposing / bringing in all this stupid ‘anti-terror’ legislation under the guise of ‘protecting our society’. Indeed we live in enlightened times.
I’ll let Ben Franklin handle this one:
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.
I totally agree, Patrick. It’s too bad enough people aren’t speaking out against everything that’s happening. Hopefully that will change soon.
Having grown up in Europe during the 70s and 80s where terrorism was happening in most countries (RAF,IRA, ETA, etc…) I don’t recall there being sweeping changes to our lives and freedom to fight terrorism (I was a bit on the young side then, so maybe I am looking at this through rose tinted glasses). It would seem we were still able to catch the ‘bad’ guys, without needing to resort to attempt to introduce such policies as locking someone away for 28 days without charging them (I am looking at you ‘New Labour’).
The sadest aspect to me though is that it didn’t really seem to bother most folks that such laws are being introduced, signing over their freedom just like that. To quote another line from Star Wars:
“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.”
seeing people say things like, “i never thought about it that way before,” really saddens me even more than the fact that oppressive governments attempt to restrict our freedoms through these “anti”-terror legislations.
two of the worst things to ever happen to america are the patriot act and the military commissions act of 2006, and yet most people probably happily went about their lives as congress went ahead and passed these “laws” and the yokel of a president signed them. if congress is supposed to be representing us, why aren’t we taking a firmer stand with what they are doing in our names? it’s because of this that i support things like the “read the bills act” http://snurl.com/4sy41 “enumerated powers act” http://snurl.com/4sy82. if we the people in america do not do something to curtail the power that these offices are attempting to usurp for themselves then we will never be nothing more than just sheeple, plain and simple.
I know that november 4th is going to be a truly sad day for all of us no matter which of the two “major” candidates gets into office, because they will never give back what has already been taken from us.
@Bonnyface
Indeed, the founding fathers would probably be another good point of reference. Maybe even better than Master Yoda.
It’s quite amazing how idealized they are in the US, and yet how what they stood so strongly for is being so disregarded today. Liberty, checks and balances, separation of church and state… Those are not ideas they put out there to be used “when convenient”! They are the essential building blocks of democracy. Forget about Yoda, don’t you think the founding fathers knew what they were talking about?
The most “patriotic” people are always the first to throw these out the window in the name of security or some other pressing matter… “But these are difficult times” they’ll say. Well, what did you think the founding fathers were talking about? “We should hold these values… except for the times when they’re annoying.” Right. These difficult times are exactly when these ideas should be protected even more strongly.
Oh well, now it’s just getting depressing…
@Greg
To be fair, non of the terrorism we have known in Europe has been on the scale of what we are going through today. It doesn’t really change what I’m saying, but it needs to be noted I guess.
Still, fear is fear, and even though we have amped security when terrorism demanded it (as it does today), I do agree that we probably never gave up those essential liberties.
For the ones who don’t know, we have been attacked by Islamist extremists in the past in France also. I can assure you people in Paris were scared shitless for months at a time. Wondering if you would blow up in the metro every time you go to work is not a nice feeling.
@Grimmlock
I’d be curious to know: is there really no way to reverse these laws? It would seem to me that congress would be able to do pretty much anything they want, as long as it’s not unconstitutional (and even then, with the right supreme court…)
So why can’t just pass the “Patriot Act was Baloney” act to invalidate it?
[Edit: Corrected the spelling of Baloney. Very important stuff.]
@David
I read your last line as “Indeed we live in enfrightened times.” which made it funny and timely what with Halloween and all… then I read it the right way and suddenly it wasn’t as funny.
@Patrick
“The Patriot Act Was Baloney” act… brilliant! if only i was in congress, i’d do it right away!
@patrick
of course they could reverse those laws, but what is the need to? far too many people in congress have been the for so many years that i bet what occurred in eddie murphy’s “the distinguished gentleman” is almost possible, election through name recognition only. the possibility of getting enough new blood into either house to repeal the horrible legislation that is passed every day is pretty much slim to none. in a very frightening way it is at least mildly funny that, with the creation of the constitution and the bill of rights, the founders of the USA were attempting to get away from a monarchy, but we have moved into this concept of a political ruling elite.
in the case of just the two laws that i mentioned, the supreme court should have declared them unconstitutional. hell, i have never figured out why the judges on the supreme court aren’t pushing for more constitutionality even while congress and the president are making and passing more and more legislation that should never be passed in the first place. it isn’t like a supreme court judge is going to go anywhere in the first place since they sit for life or until they resign. although, in some ways that has become even worse since we end up with people who vote based off of their personal beliefs (oh, i am so happy that your hypocritical belief in an imaginary being helped influence your decision on, well, anything) as opposed to what the highest document of the land says. now i feel like i am getting slightly off topic.
you know what would be a wonderful idea? consecutive term limits for both the senate and the house. not term limits as a whole, mind you, but if you would be the incumbent, you are not eligible for reelection.
The Patriot Act is on a timer. It comes up for renewal and Congress can renew it or not. It was renewed last year. There are some provisions that the executive branch wants made permanent. Example: Allowing the FBI and CIA to share intelligence. It wasn’t allowed prior to the Patriot Act. These blanket statements of saying the Patriot Act is all bad are misguided. The Patriot Act is not as invasive as the UK Official Secrets Act or terrorist/immigration laws in France. This Act is needed for now. New threats need new ways of investigation and intelligence gathering.
The Military Commissions law is needed. So you are going to let these illegal combatants to have their day in a US Court? Which court is going to do this? Which judge/lawyers are you going to put in the crosshairs for retaliation? Also right now there are 60 people in Gitmo that can be released but no country wants them. For all the bluster that Europe in particular has made about Gitmo, why aren’t they taking them in?
I’ve worked in intelligence and law enforcement. You always want to have the tools to do your job. You never get all that you want. The people in those fields are by and far earnest in their duties and want nothing more than to keep something bad from happening again. For the most part I think the Act has been used well. We won’t always need it, hopefully.
“Women and children can afford to be careless, men cannot.”
“Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You?”
Brian, I agree with part of what you’re saying, but disagree with some of it, too. One example would be the “illegal combatants”.
I was all for stuffing people in Gitmo at first. Desperate times, desperate measure, right? I’m not being ironic, I honestly think it was necessary in the begining.
But then things started getting a bit too long for comfort. How long would they go without a trial?
One of the basis of our democracies is that every man has the right to get his day in court. EVERY man. It’s not “the ok men”, or “the men we think are cool”, or “the men we think deserve it”.
Or you can give them prisoner of war status and treat them accordingly. But of course they can’t do that either. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways…
I guess my point is: yes, you can change the rules when it’s needed, but you have to be very very careful when you do so because more often than not the “exceptions” you make for desperate times become the rule because we get used to them.
Some of “our” fundamental rights are the rights of every person on this planet in our belief system. If we start changing those, we start changing our belief system itself. And that’s what, ultimately, “they” are aiming for. Things like “early years” Gitmo and torture are probably good examples of that.
The specifics can be debated, but that’s the basis of the argument.
After reading your most current post (17/11/08) I came back to read this.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but unlike some of your commenters I don’t think that means that the actions taken since 9/11 have been wrong (not as a whole anyway).
I just think we need both sides of this discussion to make sure we do what is necessary, but only for as long as it is necessary, then no more.
We need to act strong in response to horrible acts against us, but we need the voice of moderation yelling at us the whole time to make sure we don’t get carried away.
Well that’s terrorism for you. They can’t kill you all but they will terrorize you to hemorhange your country. Just to point out, terrorists aren’t only the people in the caves over in the “Istan’s”. Short defenition of the term..
Terrorism: the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.
It’s going on all over the world. In Palestine terrorism was used to keep the civilians on both sides of the occupation and war at fear. The American colonies with the small pox blankets. That scared the crap out of the Native Americans as well as kill them. If there will ever be a war on terror, it will never end and it will make the other side succeed, no matter how much you try. When Bush said “your either with us, or with them”, that was exactly what Patrick mentioned with the yoda quote. It was a decision led by emotions. Anyways, /rant.