Reply #179: Your Implication, Sir

[The Magistrate]

That disagreement with you on this matter equates to support for the criminals of the '00 Coup is noted. It seems to be a staple of those who worship at the church of ultra-conspitacy that any who disagree are merely agents in some way of the grand conspirators. It is a common mental defense mechanism, that serves to shield believers from having to consider arguments against the articles of their faith, in rather the same manner as imputing Satanic inspiration to evolutionary or psychiatric theory serves a devout fundamentalist.

It would be tedious to rehearse in its entirity the body of my differences with, and detestation for, the current regime and its policies. The wrecking of the national fisc, the squeezing of wages, the thieveries of crony capitalism, the attempt to in essence roll back the New Deal, the exhaltation of a pernicious religiousity in national life, the embarcation on a course of imperial adventure and the studied incompetence with which that ill-conceived venture is being pursued, would constitute only a selection among the highlights.

However, Sir, there is really very little about the al'Queda attacks that much alarms me. They did, and do, highlight the degree of incompetence and inertia in the bureaucracies charged with security in a time of peace, but that is the normal state of such bureaucracies in times of peace. It is quite clear that the degree to which a foreign foe was capable of striking the United States was greatly under-rated, but that, too, is very normal: we are rather prone, here, to under-rate the capabilities of browner peoples to do anything, and that we should have under-rated Arabs surprises me no more than that we under-rated Japanese, and continue to under-rate Chinese. Without surprise, it is difficult to summon up much in the way of alarm.