September 12, 2001

[Syrinx]

I remember talking with a friend the day after 9/11. I actually said "Well, I don't really like George W. Bush, but he's the president, and I've got to get behind him now."

I'm one of the most cynical, even paranoid, people in the nation when it comes to our political system, but for a brief time, measured in weeks, or maybe a few months, I really believed that Bush was sincere in wanting to defend this country against foreign invaders, and I pushed partisanship aside.

Just like the lawmakers that gathered on the steps of the Capitol to sing patriotic hymns, I was fooled by a political machine that was cynical in the very worst sense of the word.

How could we have been so stupid? How could we have been played like that?

Several weeks later, my eyes opened anew, I saw the manipulation that was going on. I saw the opportunism and the shameless exploitation of the victims of the attacks. I saw it, but apparently the "opposition" in Congress did not.

Have the Harry Reids and Nancy Pelosis of this world seen the truth yet? To this day, are they still being conned by the emperor that long ago was shown to be a nudist? Either they are still being conned, which six years on, shows that they are not competent, or they are co-conspirators. It has to be one or the other. There is no other explanation.

I will never, ever vote for a Republican, but I'm hoping for a sweep against the Democratic incumbents in the primary races that are up. We need new blood. We need honest blood. We need fearless blood.

We need leaders!

Is that too much to ask?

Our "Democrats" need to be reminded that they are the party of the people! They need to be reminded that Habeas Corpus is the most basic foundation of a free society.

They say that the most basic right is the right to stay alive. What wimps! What sell-outs! What hypocrites! What phonies.

Remind your representatives, through snail mail, email, and townhall meetings of the great words of our founding father, Thomas Paine:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Please forgive my lapse into mindless patriotism in the days immediately following the events of September 11th. I quickly recovered my senses. Our Speaker and Majority Leader are slower to heal, and my prescription for them is tough love.

George W. Bush is still my president, but I've long seen him for what he is. He is a petty, vindicative, intellectually-challenged man that gets his jollies from destroying all that is good. As a child, he amused himself with exploding frogs. As an adult, by some sick twist of history, he has graduated to mass murder, dreams of genocide, and the attempted completion of his grandfather's vision -- the overthrow of the American constitution and the American way of life.

I'm baffled by why so many people that I know can't see what is so crystal clear. But it comforts me a bit to know that my mind was clouded for a time, and I soon gathered my thoughts. Perhaps their minds will clear eventually, and we will shake off this contagion, this poison, this fear, this self-hate, that has enveloped our nation for too long.