(no subject)
Thanksgiving was a great time. Philadelphia is always a mixed bag for me; between friends and family, many of my strongest emotions are tied up in that city's vistas and valleys. It's hard to look at much of anything out there without being blindsided by one gusher of biochemicals or another.
This Thanksgiving was more educational than most. I found myself in possession of a wide variety of facts I had not known, some of which I may share:
- My family's dog, the pound puppy they picked up when I was away for ten days back in Boy Scouts, is probably about 15 years old. This is impossible to tell; he doesn't act his age. The vet suggested he might have a bit of terrier in him, since they're known for unusual resiliency. He's about 2.5-feet tall; I feel sorry for the terrier.
- Somehow, I had always strangely assumed that my family---which has had military members in every generation since my grandfather---never served in Vietnam. That's a complete untruth; two of my relatives did. I don't know how I never thought to work out the math on that myself.
- My cousin in the Navy has an XBox. Zany hijinks will ensue.
- My grandfather never got a purple heart---I must have been thinking of someone else's grandfather. He was, however, involved in the initial landing operations at Anzio in Italy. He wasn't first wave, but he was part of the follow-up crews.
- My brother is awesome, and listens far more when I talk than I give him credit.
So all-in-all, an excellent Thanksgiving. But I'm only too glad to be back in the 'burgh, back to work, and back home.
I stumbled across this short news piece linked from slashdot today. I would really like the transcript of Newt Gingrich's speech here; lacking it, I will respond to the points highlighted in the news post. So perhaps these thoughts will be rendered invalid by further data in the next couple of days; we shall see.
First of all, I'd like to applaud Mr. Gingrich for his candor. This is exactly the sort of discussion that I think we as a nation should be having regarding our liberties and how to protect them in the face of threats to our national security. The thoughts he has expressed have also, I think, served as a specific locus upon which I may rest my disagreement with his philosophy and the philosophy of his party leadership.
Mr. Gingrich, I respect that our world is unsafe. I respect that there are people who wish to do me and my countrymen harm for various reasons. And I respect that you, your party, and our president feel---and by rights ought to feel---personal responsibility for protecting me and my countrymen from these threats. But I disagree with you on the nature of the threats, and I disagree with you on the nature of protection.
Mr. Gingrich, I would gladly sacrifice an American city---including the one I am currently sitting in---to preserve the freedom of speech. Hell, I'd sacrifice two. I'd sacrifice them willingly and without a second thought, because that freedom is so important, so core, to both the function of our government and the culture of our people that to contain, curtail, or obliterate it is to do the same to America itself. America, Mr. Gingrich, is a nation that speaks its mind. It speaks its mind on all matters, public and private. It speaks its mind on gods and God, or the lack thereof---on Allah, Buddha, Jehova, Zeus, Satan, Zarathustra, and all other names that have been pronounced and unpronounceable throughout human history. It speaks its mind on technology and nature, people and pop culture. And it speaks its mind on you, sir, as you speak your mind on it. It is not the only nation to speak its mind with such bare, naked freedom---but it is one of the first of this age to have done so, and one of the first of this age to recognize why it must do so.
Mr. Gingrich, you have rightly observed that the terrorists are smart. Very smart. And you have rightly observed that they watch us; that they use our words and our free information to their advantage; that they twist our views through their lenses to represent us as they desire for their own ends. But we cannot stop them by refusing to speak; we cannot protect ourselves by keeping silent. For we cannot refuse to speak to them without refusing to speak to each other. And when we cannot speak to ourselves---when we can no longer hear our own thoughts in our collective head, when we can no longer talk to our neighbors, Mr. Gingrich, when we can no longer consider your actions in public or the actions of our president in public---then the terrorists, to use a terribly cliche expression, have actually won. They have won, because they have rendered this nation brain-dead, silent of thought, a mental vegetable.
We cannot win this battle by keeping silent. Rather, we must win it by being heard. In parts of the world distant from us and from our sphere of influence---for yes, our sphere of influence is limited---those whom we fight use their control of speech to paint us with a brush of their choosing in the minds of other people. We cannot stop that by buttoning up. In fact, in this sphere silence is our greatest threat. To win this battle, we must be smarter, faster, better than our opponents. To do that, we must understand how to do that. And to understand that, we must talk to each other. We must talk to each other, talk to our children, talk to our neighbors, talk about everything under the sun. Because to talk is to share, and to share is to trust. If we cannot trust ourselves, Mr. Gingrich, then we cannot expect trust from other people; it is an old adage, and it applies to individuals as well as to nations.
Mr. Gingrich, when your party lost majority control of the House and Senate of these United States, our president---also of your party---seemed genuinely surprised. I know this, because the free media allowed me to see it. Perhaps if he had been allowed to hear his own people---if we had felt comfortable talking to him, if a dark shadow hadn't fallen over the public discourse these past five years---perhaps he would not have seemed so surprised.
It's easy, of course, to make such statements, when I have little opportunity to back them up with action. But sometimes the words stand alone as true, independent of the speaker.
Take care,
Mark