Fiat Lux

The news from abroad is a little scary today. Christopher Allbritton reports:

Before, there was a distinction drawn between the American government and the American people. A few nights ago, one cabbie told me that he thinks American people are very nice, but the American government is “very bad.” Now, as one of my friends said, “The American people are the problem.”

This will translate into increased hostility against Americans, especially in the Middle East. (I'm in Beirut at the moment.) The American government is seen as hopelessly biased against Arabs and Palestinians, but now the American people are culpable as well.

And over a a blog I just came across, chez Nadezhda, these nervewracking observations:

Osama Bin Laden has garnered an enormous propaganda coup in the reelection of George Bush as president of the United States.

Why, you ask?

Because now he will make the argument that it is Islamically permissible to kill American civilians because, in his view, they are morally culpable for the actions of their government abroad. They have ratified George Bush and his policy, in Bin Laden's view, of killing Muslims and invading their lands.

It's disheartening.

I also got a rant from a die-hard Democrat pal who lives in DC.

What the hell, they have a governing majority, let's go. Bring it on. I want to see a 19% flat tax. My wife and I make good salaries and own a pile of high-value real estate. Screw the poor. My retirement's secure, let's eliminate Social Security. I've got a generous health plan from my employer, let's throw everyone who's not working either into the street or into the poor-clinics. I want to see Scalia as Chief Justice of a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe and I want a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. I want laws barring gay marriage, and if John "Der Fuhrer" Ashcroft wants to reinstate anti-sodomy laws and start wiretapping and arresting people in their bedrooms, Amen I say. Round up everyone who doesn't look like a "true American". I'm white, male and married, what do I care, I've got nothing to lose.

Bring It The **** On. I want to see the most intolerant, reactionary, knuckle-scraping, neanderthal social and economic policy these gun-totin', bible-thumpin' bigots can devise.

Cause when we do, I'm gonna sit back in my chair with a glass of wine and a wheel of brie and enjoy the revolution that will ensue.

"It has to get worse before it can get better" is a meme I've heard a few times since the election and I think it's got some validity. I'm just really scared how bad it has to get and how many people will die before it does get better.