I am no more afraid of Muslims than I am of Christians or Atheists.
I am NOT afraid.
I AM afraid of extreme fundamentalists: Muslim, Christian or other. When you’re so damn sure you’re right so you’re willing to commit murder via planes or…
…public: via on camera, beheadings or…
…bomb gay clubs or clinics, a day care in a public building or…
…shoot medical personnel or…
…murder someone you believe might be “possessed,” or a witch, or Unitarians or other faiths which offend you in some way…
Hell, yes, I’m “afraid.”
And…
I’m willing to defend myself and my right to tell you to stuff your insistence right back up your AK47. Sometimes I dream I’ve found a way to wire your bomb to explode, or make your ammunition go off, in your face when you’re very much alone: pre-murder.
I admit that dream makes me a bit of a fanatic too. But people who do such have gone beyond belief into being evil.
I am not afraid of liberals or conservatives, libertarians or socialists, President Obama or Sarah Palin.
I am afraid if we take either too seriously, let them have too much power, control, or allow them to dominate the national stage too much. I am afraid if we either oppress criticism, or take any too seriously. I am damn tired of melodrama and am afraid such will: once again, make us do stupid things like get soldiers dead over stupid, self aggrandizing, fear mongering policies that only serve the purveyors of such, their base and their sponsors.
Corporations do not scare me. Unregulated corporations do. Like any human endeavor nothing is self regulating. Rules, laws and regulations are necessary. We just need to debate which ones and how strictly we enforce.
The media does scare me: not because it’s “liberal,” or “corporatist,” or “right wing.” It’s frightening because when profit, readership, viewership, appealing to some base audience or CEO’s ideology, becomes more important than anything they can do more damage, cause more necessary death and fashion a more oppressive society, faster and easier than any president or member of Congress.
I am not afraid of the supposed welfare queens. No system we’ll have will ever be free of abuse. Sure: we need to seek it out where it really does exist. But, frankly, I wish I had Twilight Zone-like powers where those who gain power by demonizing unwed mothers trying to keep their head above water, those crushed by huge medical bills or massive job cuts caused by the very same pols and pundits, and put them out on the street, cut all support systems they might have, make them live in the human cesspools some were born into: see how well they might do in the bottomless pools the poor often swim in.
I’m guessing most would drown still ranting, under water, about those horrible folks on public assistance.
I am not afraid of the rich. I am afraid of these “the rich are rich because God blessed them for being better people,” or “because they serve society better so should have more power, more votes, turn society into an oligarchy” concepts. There are many reasons folks are rich that have nothing to do with any of that including inheritance, scams and products that can maim, kill, cheapen and destroy society. To me the drive to deregulate has as much to do with enabling all that than any mythical “free” market.
Look at it this way: if we make murder, robbery, assault and rape legal will we have a more “free” society? Or will the “free market” of ideas like “I can do any damn thing I want” make it a far less “free” society? We have rules, regulations and laws because everything we do is influenced by fallible humans: including the market.
Black, whites and all shades? Illegal immigrants? I don’t fear them. I fear the consequences of those CEOs who intentionally hire them and are rarely punished, or get a light legal chiding. They belong in prison. For a long time. And as for those who do fear monger regrading such? A high percentage is racism and intentional fear mongering. And as to any racist comments that may have an ounce of truth? Once again I long for that Twilight Zone-like power. Let those who speak such be the product of hundreds of years of being treated as far, far less than human, having outright murder being legal because of how they were born or who they are, having a color you are born with following you into the office for the job interview, and onto the floor where you do work if you do get hired: complete with all the nasty assumptions.
Most white folks who do such, for example, wouldn’t last long with black skin. And sometimes I wonder if they’d be so clueless they’d continue to rant: demeaning themselves.
I don’t fear a society that keeps abortion legal, though I do slightly fear one that has no regulations regarding the same. But far, far more I fear a society where the government can either force birth, or force abortion.
I am damn tired of fear mongers who want get my vote, my support, by conveniently framing those they disagree with. I don’t give a damn who Obama thinks Rush Limbaugh really is, or claims he actually “intends,” and don’t give a damn about the same when it comes to Limbaugh, Savage, Glen Beck or how any talker left or right wants to frame someone they disagree with. Take those all too convenient frames and shove them. Hard.
And last, but most important, I do fear the portion of the public who so easily accept such framing again and again when it comes to those they find disagreeable: accept it without question. For more than religious fanatics, government decided birth, the press, the rich, the “fake” poor, or anything else mentioned here, I fear this portion of the American public the most.
They are the Brownshirts, the party loyalists in the old Soviet Union, those who supported those who committed genocide in Cambodia rather than the “nasty” Vietnamese, those who do not regret supporting bin Laden because of the “nasty” Soviets being in Afghanistan. They enable the worst of the worst.
These “folks” are the biggest danger to our society.
And should be feared.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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