Fear Itself
From Indiana, the American heartland:
I wonder how often stories like this happen that don't get picked up by national news services. (I wouldn't know about this if it hadn't made the 'silly story' break on NPR's Morning Edition.) This one is even worse than the newspaper vending machines in LA that were wired to play the Mission Impossible theme. After all, one assumes that beer signs are expected to come with wires and lights.
Since 9/11, there has been a chorus of voices working, for purely their own interests, to keep us all afraid of a terrorist attack. Not reasonably apprehensive, not making well-informed risk assessments, but afraid, unreasoning, acting out of emotion. Open to manipulation.
The American system is based on the idea that the common citizen is capable of making important judgments for him- or herself, and that common sense is an adequate foundation for a governmental system. Sometimes I wonder how the Founders ever came up with such a wacky idea. You've got to love the optimism of it, and the basic respect it shows for the potential in each of us.
There is an alternate principle, that Big Daddy will protect you from the Big Bad World, if you don't worry your pretty little head about it and just give him the power that he asks for. It's based on a fundamental disrespect for the common citizen, and a cynical pessimism. We could call it the 'W-prinzip'.
Of course, it requires that the electorate be convinced that they need protection from a Big Bad World, that terrible threats are close at hand and may strike at any moment, and that the people, themselves, are not competent to judge the nature of the threat, or their world at large.
Looks like that's coming along well.
PLYMOUTH — A suspicious object that turned out to be a flashing red light on a beer advertisement forced the evacuation of a Plymouth resort hotel early Monday morning.Random bartenders at resorts in Indiana (is that an oxymoron?) are rousting guests out of the building in the middle of the night because a beer sign scared them? Sounds like the terrorists have already won.
Doug Leedke, general manager of Swan Lake Resort, said about 30-40 guests were evacuated about 12:45 a.m. Monday after a bartender in the hotel’s restaurant noticed a blinking red light on a white object on the wall and suspected it might be a bomb.
A Marshall County Sheriff’s officer later determined the light was part of a Pabst Blue Ribbon advertisement suction-cupped to the restaurant’s window.
I wonder how often stories like this happen that don't get picked up by national news services. (I wouldn't know about this if it hadn't made the 'silly story' break on NPR's Morning Edition.) This one is even worse than the newspaper vending machines in LA that were wired to play the Mission Impossible theme. After all, one assumes that beer signs are expected to come with wires and lights.
Since 9/11, there has been a chorus of voices working, for purely their own interests, to keep us all afraid of a terrorist attack. Not reasonably apprehensive, not making well-informed risk assessments, but afraid, unreasoning, acting out of emotion. Open to manipulation.
The American system is based on the idea that the common citizen is capable of making important judgments for him- or herself, and that common sense is an adequate foundation for a governmental system. Sometimes I wonder how the Founders ever came up with such a wacky idea. You've got to love the optimism of it, and the basic respect it shows for the potential in each of us.
There is an alternate principle, that Big Daddy will protect you from the Big Bad World, if you don't worry your pretty little head about it and just give him the power that he asks for. It's based on a fundamental disrespect for the common citizen, and a cynical pessimism. We could call it the 'W-prinzip'.
Of course, it requires that the electorate be convinced that they need protection from a Big Bad World, that terrible threats are close at hand and may strike at any moment, and that the people, themselves, are not competent to judge the nature of the threat, or their world at large.
Looks like that's coming along well.
posted by Paul at 7:59 AM |
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