Tip of the hat to Chuck’s list of things he doesn’t care about this morning. I’ll follow with my list of things I’m very weary of:
- Trying to “understand” and “be tolerant of” terrorists, ghetto kids who kill each other (and innocent bystanders), and homeless people who have “no choice” but to steal and to shit on the streets. Having a “hard life” or a “grievance” is no excuse for making other people miserable.
- The notion that any violence committed against innocent Americans without warning is probably justified by our warmongering imperialism (or whatever), but that any organized retaliation BY Americans is barbaric. Why are we always the ones who are wrong?
- The idea that popular opinion is any more sufficient justification for engaging (or not engaging) in a war than it is for denying civil rights or for giving Constitutional protection to a red, white, and blue piece of cloth.
For what it matters, I have not completely formed my own opinion about any impending military action. I am not convinced that attacking Iraq is the most prudent course of action at present, both for economic and political reasons, but I’m also not convinced that it’s an inherently immoral thing…
I can say, though, that most of the arguments expressed in the local paper haven’t swayed me one way or the other. And I can also state with some assurance that trite, simplistic slogans like “no war for oil” are of little more persuasive value to anyone with an IQ above 65 than those “kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out” T-shirts you used to see during the Gulf War..
Unrelated: note the new navigation bar above, which will now take you to the Road Trips and Rants sections, both of which used to be housed at Planet SOMA. This is something I’ve been planning for a long time, and I’m now reducing Planet SOMA to a site largely concerned with San Francisco and the South of Market Area. There will be some new content over there too, but this is where the “action” will be, particularly after my liberation from the Bay Area…