Thursday, January 12, 2006

Cooking the Lobster: The Toll for the Eroding and Corrosion of our Government

Every so often, a comment makes me think it's a good thing to allow anonymous folks to post (and indeed, aren't we all bloggers in a twist about anonymity). Here's one that reminded me about the advice I got for cooking lobsters back from family in New England. It's best to put the lobster in very cold water and then turn on the heat. That way they never notice they are on the dinner menu.

Much like the lobsters (and lovely, tasty blue crabs) I've cooked over the years, I fear the W, Rove and Co are cooking the American people on a slow simmer. Eventually, we are going to notice that we are cooked. And, by then it will be too late. Here's the link to the comment and a taste of a couple of paragraphs to wet your whistle:
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, is taking place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real security purposes. And all the crises and safeguards (occasionally real safeguards, too) so preoccupy the people that they cannot not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most ever have occasion to develop. Each step is so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that, unless one is detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understands what the whole thing is in principle, what all these 'little measures' (that no 'reasonable, patriotic American' could resent) must some day lead to, one no more can see it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. One day, the government can do anything (and does) that it sees necessary, law or no law.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This comment was spammed across a number of blogs. Blognonymous got it in response to this post.

Though you can't disagree with much of what's here, I think that this guy (gal) is a card-carrying member of American's for Brevity