“EGAD…IT’S LON CHANEY, JR.!”

8/24/11

In the wake of yesterday’s temblor on the east coast, the news media went about their seemingly appointed task of making everyone think the apocalypse was nigh when what New Yorkers, Philadelphians, and Washingtonians were experiencing would not even be noticed, say, on the west coast or in Japan. But I am digressing before even making a point.

Many of the people who had microphones thrust into their faces yesterday had the same comment, something like

“I thought it was terrorists!”

My first thought, after hearing these panicked reactions, was that the government has indeed done its job well.

Ever growing, ever demanding government is in search of food and fuel to sustain its growth. Given that today’s citizenry has at the very best a passing familiarity with the Constitution but a well honed sense of fear and dread, the government needs a bogeyman, always, to break down resistance to or, increasingly, elicit full-throated support for, assaults on liberty and an ever expanding “defense” budget in the interest of “keeping us safe." As I said in my instantly seminal 5/4/11 piece, MY (SO FAR) TWO CENTS ON BIN LADEN’S LONG DELAYED DEMISE, if Osama bin Laden never existed, the government would have had to invent him. “Terrorists” have served this government purpose well since the Soviet Union was crushed under the weight of the inherent stupidity of its philosophical basis; now the government has us crying “terrorism” every time anything bad happens. Thank you, Department of Homeland Security.

One more note…

Judging from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page of late and the e-mails I have been getting over the last few months (I, like many of you, am on the mailing list of legions of true believers on both sides of the political spectrum, but mostly from the side composed of those who consider Rush Limbaugh to be the result of an illicit union between George Washington and Margaret Thatcher, or perhaps Joan of Arc, were she not French. Time periods, and other complications of history, are of little consequence to such types.), the next time we get another earthquake, tornado, tidal wave, tsunami, sink hole, or bout of road construction, those in whose faces the media types will thrust microphones will blurt out

“I thought it was the Chinese!”

Mark my words.