New Category: Anti-Americans (and a note on Godwin’s Law) July 28, 2006
Posted by danjeffers in Anti-Americans.add a comment
I’ve been thinking about the term “Anti-American” for some time now. It’s an easy charge to throw out, and it often prompts a defensive flag-waving reaction. I’m limiting my discussion to Americans (specificaly, residents and citizens of the United States).
The charge that people upset with particular aspects of government policy are anti-American seems obviously stupid. But people keep saying it, and those who are attacked seem defensive about it, so it’s worth addressing. Anyone who cares about America cares enough to fight over what America should be doing.
My first thought was just to flip that over and attack those right wingers who insist that their particular vision of America is the only one that is true are in some fashion anti-American. But that’s just as facile. I know conservatives who do care about this country, about what it does and how it does it. We just disagree on details and effectiveness.
What I propose is reserving the term anti-American for those who do any of the following:
- Pretend to be doing something for the good of America when in fact they are working for a small sub-class of Americans at the expense of others.
- Attack the essential liberties which are part of being American.
- Do something that shames America in the eyes of the world.
- Engages in tactics that are anti-thetical to the independence of Americans.
A good example of the last is the tactic chosen by Oakland Police in their “struggle” with anti-war protestors. They sent in undercover officers to infiltrate a labor-related anti-war protest. Fine. Maybe a good idea, maybe not. But these officers were elected to actually LEAD the protest, planning the route and possibly changing the nature of the protest itself. This is a tactic successfully used by totalitarians to disrupt and discredit political foes. In fact, this could be an instance where the mention of Hitler doesn’t violate Godwin’s law, because Hitler was very good at infiltrating opposition groups and leading them into doing stupid things.
Limited Use Horns July 17, 2006
Posted by danjeffers in Great Inventions.add a comment
I have to credit my friend Carrie with this one. A car horn, like an air-bag, is a safety device. If you go nuts on the horn, an alert policeman can right you a ticket for mis-use of a safety device. Since DC police don’t care, it’s unlikely you’ll get ticketed, of course.
But what if, like an air-bag, you only get a limited number of horn uses when you buy your car. When you honk the horn more than, say, 500 times, you have to get a new horn-activition device at some substantial cost. If you buy too many, you lose points on your license and your insurance goes up.
DC Metro Handles 100 Degree Heat July 17, 2006
Posted by danjeffers in Washington DC.add a comment
By shutting down escalators and elevators and letting people inure themselves to the heat and humidity. As a global survival strategy, this makes a certain amount of sense. If the world is getting hotter, it’s never too early to start conditioning ourselves to a hot, nasty, environment without the use of metro escalators. And, the unfit will soon start dropping like flies.
