Tuesday, October 3, 2006
insanity continued
The Foley situation is undeniably truly horrible. A mess. A bad situation. In fact, except that I wouldn't want to touch him, I would eagerly beat up and chop off the body parts of anyone who does such things. Nary a soul would suggest that we should ignore pedophiles, especially if they're running around the halls of Congress. But consider for a moment if Foley were being accused of something different. Something like, oh, I don't know, being a communist sympathizer. Remind you of anything? I mean, some people genuinely thought communism was dreadful, tantamount to satanic presence, and they were alarmed as all get-out when they thought communists were federal office holders and/or administration apparatchiks staffers. And many other people thought anti-communism became absurdly extreme and out of control, and led to horrible behavior commonly referred to as witch hunting. (Can you say HUAC?)
My point being that after reading several pieces on all this, including this: (a) if all the people Foley approached were 16+, then it's still disgusting but it's not actually illegal, (b) it's not at all clear that anyone had good motives in this, (c) there were at least two previous congressmen involved in possibly worse situations but one of them served six more terms without any apparent ill effects to his career, (d) since George Soros is involved in the revelations, there is a wee alarm bell going off in my head that something is amiss about this mess, (e) the timing and quite a lot more are suspect on everyone's part, (f) where was everyone (both sides of the 'aisle') before now? and (g) I wish it wasn't such a part of our culture to engage in witch hunting instead of reasoned discovery processes, even when the hunted really are witches.
My point being that after reading several pieces on all this, including this: (a) if all the people Foley approached were 16+, then it's still disgusting but it's not actually illegal, (b) it's not at all clear that anyone had good motives in this, (c) there were at least two previous congressmen involved in possibly worse situations but one of them served six more terms without any apparent ill effects to his career, (d) since George Soros is involved in the revelations, there is a wee alarm bell going off in my head that something is amiss about this mess, (e) the timing and quite a lot more are suspect on everyone's part, (f) where was everyone (both sides of the 'aisle') before now? and (g) I wish it wasn't such a part of our culture to engage in witch hunting instead of reasoned discovery processes, even when the hunted really are witches.
Labels: politics, reflections
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