From: Amara Graps (Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 05:14:20 MDT
Dan:
>I'm surprised how the September 11th attacks have turned so many
>people against freedom, making them favor increase government
>power.
I agree, maybe not surprised, but it makes my stomach feel very sick.
We lost large ground in our freedoms the last months. The 'War on
Terrorism' rhetoric gives a blank check to governments to behave in
whatever manner they please.
People are more skeptical outside of the US regarding the rhetoric,
but other governments are usually not as easily responsive to their
citizens as the U.S. government is to theirs. I fervently hope that
more U.S. citizens pay close attention to what their government is
doing and reset their bullshit detector threshold level to a low
value.
>Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe those people were just
>silent all along or they were just latent statists.
The rhetoric plays on people's fears (that's why I think it's
successful).
Amara
"It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing
may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives, lives by
delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a
single human baby would survive for a fortnight.
Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The
Pyramids will not a last a moment compared with the daisy. And before
Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words
of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion, the nightingale still will
sing. Because it is neither preaching nore teaching nor commanding nor
urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a
chirrup."
-- D.H. Lawrence Etruscan Places (1932).
--
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Amara Graps, PhD | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik
Heidelberg Cosmic Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1
+49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de * http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps
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"Never fight an inanimate object." - P. J. O'Rourke
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