At work a few weeks ago I found myself listening to a conversation about crime and punishment between 2 co-workers. One was a Progressive and the other was a Neo-Con. The discussion centered on the use of the death penalty and whether or not it was appropriate or called for in certain cases. The Neo-Con certainly felt that almost everyone who committed a crime should be considered as a death penalty candidate since keeping them in jail would "cost me in taxes".
At this point, there was nothing said that truly surprised me. That was until the Neo-Con mentioned that public executions should be re-instituted in America. She said that the executions would be a deterrent to crime and that people should be commended to watch in order to see the consequences of crime. That again didn't phase me since I heard this woman talk before.
The point at which I had to walk away was when she said that she would gladly take her 4-year old daughter to witness an execution! This was and is, unbelievable to me. To think that someone would willingly take a child to see an execution, in the hopes that it would teach her a "lesson" is mind-blowing. What can a 4-year old girl possibly learn from this? That anything she does can cause her to be killed? That death is OK as long as it happens to someone else?
I thought about the conversation and eventually things began to make sense to me. The woman wanted to so thoroughly control and frighten her child that she would never question authority. That is the hallmark of the Neo-Con movement. Never question anything that a Neo-Con leadership proposes or you too will find yourself being executed in front of the world.
Witness the attacks that seem to appear out of nowhere when someone disagrees with the Bush administration. Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Al Gore, George Soros, Amnesty International, Newsweek, etc. Disagreement = death in the minds of the Neo-Cons and that helps to explain the reasoning behind their processes. Whether the death is literal as in the case of the soldiers dying for a lie in Iraq, or figurative as in the character assassinations, the message is always the same. Neo-Cons are terrified of being cut off from their herd and being left to think for themselves. Critical thought is a tool of "the forces of Evil", or of those who "hate America and Freedom".
I pity that woman now more than ever. She is taking her daughter down the primrose path towards the intellectual slaughterhouse convinced that she is doing the right thing. Since she cannot think for herself, she can no nothing better than what the leaders appointed over her have told her. And most chilling of all this little girl is being taught that disagreement or critical though is the sure way to the gallows.
These are the people that are trying to control America now. We have to defend our rights against their assaults and demand that our children be allowed to develop as individuals rather than cannon fodder if this great social experiment known as America is going to survive.
At this point, there was nothing said that truly surprised me. That was until the Neo-Con mentioned that public executions should be re-instituted in America. She said that the executions would be a deterrent to crime and that people should be commended to watch in order to see the consequences of crime. That again didn't phase me since I heard this woman talk before.
The point at which I had to walk away was when she said that she would gladly take her 4-year old daughter to witness an execution! This was and is, unbelievable to me. To think that someone would willingly take a child to see an execution, in the hopes that it would teach her a "lesson" is mind-blowing. What can a 4-year old girl possibly learn from this? That anything she does can cause her to be killed? That death is OK as long as it happens to someone else?
I thought about the conversation and eventually things began to make sense to me. The woman wanted to so thoroughly control and frighten her child that she would never question authority. That is the hallmark of the Neo-Con movement. Never question anything that a Neo-Con leadership proposes or you too will find yourself being executed in front of the world.
Witness the attacks that seem to appear out of nowhere when someone disagrees with the Bush administration. Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Al Gore, George Soros, Amnesty International, Newsweek, etc. Disagreement = death in the minds of the Neo-Cons and that helps to explain the reasoning behind their processes. Whether the death is literal as in the case of the soldiers dying for a lie in Iraq, or figurative as in the character assassinations, the message is always the same. Neo-Cons are terrified of being cut off from their herd and being left to think for themselves. Critical thought is a tool of "the forces of Evil", or of those who "hate America and Freedom".
I pity that woman now more than ever. She is taking her daughter down the primrose path towards the intellectual slaughterhouse convinced that she is doing the right thing. Since she cannot think for herself, she can no nothing better than what the leaders appointed over her have told her. And most chilling of all this little girl is being taught that disagreement or critical though is the sure way to the gallows.
These are the people that are trying to control America now. We have to defend our rights against their assaults and demand that our children be allowed to develop as individuals rather than cannon fodder if this great social experiment known as America is going to survive.
posted by:
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Maryland
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