Friday, September 28, 2001

Set an example worth following
Commentary by Chris Dobson

While many of my fellow students have encouraged me to hold back my ideas about American governance in the wake of this terrorist attack, I feel that everyone has had enough time to grieve over the souls we have lost. It is time to start working to save those who are not yet dead.

Every day there are 24,000 people who starve, when there is food to feed all the people of the world. Everyday people die from respiratory illness while we continue driving to and from The Main.

Why should I be loyal to a government that seeks to imprison people for choosing to use drugs, other than alcohol and tobacco? Why are alcohol and tobacco conveniently missing from the war on drugs?

Why should I support a government that sees itself as on a crusade to remove the evil doers of the world? Have we all not done evil at some point in our life? Doesn’t that make us the evil doers?

If our government still refuses to teach meaningful sex education in school, beyond “Zip it up, premarital sex is bad!” then why am I, as an advocate of drugs, sex and other such evil things the government dissuades, required to be patriotic during times of national crisis? Why is there now a national crisis?

I have watched as our government has enforced policies that killed and imprisoned many times more people than were killed Sept. 11 and yet there has been no national crisis. Maybe our government values our life that much, but more likely they just do not care about the lives of non-Americans.

America the country is a beautiful mosaic of hills and valleys, mountains and deserts.

The people, while generally self-absorbed, are pretty bovine in nature ensuring that not too many stray from the herd. While I choose to stray I can respect those who do not. The federal government of the United States, however, deserves contempt and ridicule for believing the world is its playground and, dare I say, that it is the heart of the Empire.

We must remember our government has no respect for human life beyond that which must be done to remain in power. For those of you who might argue that point allow me to remind you of Nagasaki. Regardless of your position on Hiroshima, I have yet to hear one reason for the second detonation of a weapon of mass destruction on a civilian population. Except, I forgot, those weren’t people, that was the “enemy.”

Now we have new enemies to not care about, like Iraqis, Afghans, the Chinese and the “bad drug” users. Yes, American lives were lost recently and in spectacular style, but the sanctions imposed on Iraq since the end of the gulf slaughter has killed approximately three quarters of a million people, half of them children, but they are the enemy also.

The “bad drug” users in our country face unemployment, prison terms and a black market and for what reason? The only reason, as far as I can discern, is we simply have to set a “good” example for our children.

What a great example. I can see it now.

“Well Billy, when you find someone out there in this great big world of ours and he’s doing something that doesn’t effect you, and that you don’t like, make sure they have the hardest time doing it, and under the most dangerous circumstances you can create.”

The example we set for children is one of prejudice and intolerance for those ideas that are not our own. If we are really worried about the example we set, perhaps it’s not the best example to hide away in dark little cells those things with which you don’t agree.

It is not so much who we fight anymore, but the fact that we are constantly fighting. There must always be a whipping boy: communists, anarchists, Islamic fundamentalists, foreigners, drug users or subversives. If one day we woke up and realized that we did not have any enemies left, we would not need an army any more or a weapons industry.

Boy, would that mess up the economy. However, if one day the world economy took into account all the people of the world and not just our friends we could end terrorism and starvation. You can call me a dreamer but I, too, just want to set an example for our children, our enemies and anyone else alive.

Chris Dobson is a senior political science major from Arlington. He can be contacted at (c.p.dobson@student.tcu.edu).