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L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 307, February 20, 2005 Happy 90th Birthday, Dad!
A News Story as Seen Through Different Eyes
Exclusive to TLE "A US university in Wisconsin has blocked an attempt by Republican students to raise money for a group called Adopt a Sniper. The group raises money for US sharp-shooters in Iraq and Afghanistan." "The brainchild of a Texas police SWAT officer Adopt a Sniper (www.adoptasniper.org) has raised thousands of dollars in cash and gear to supplement the kit of sharp shooters in US combat platoons." "Students were selling bracelets bearing the motto: '1 Shot 1 Kill. No Remorse. I Decide'." As reported in al-Jazzera the most widely read news source in the Muslim world. I wonder if I did the same thing as the College Republicans at UW only for al-Qaeda, how long to you suppose it would take for the FBI to bust inside my house and arrest me? The typical white male college-boy Republican seems to be a racist idiot who enjoys with sadistic glee the thought of helping others kill. Something they enjoy the thought of, but have not the courage or ability to do for themselves. This news story shows their mentality clearly for us all to see. Really funny eh? Contrast this with the reaction when foreign mercenaries were summarily killed and their corpses hung from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq last year. No laughter about that incident though. "Those animals!" thundered the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Oliver North, and Sean Hannity. Now I have to admit when I first saw their website I thought this was some sort of sick attempt a humor or satire. But no, I am disgusted to say it isn't. I was picking through news stories on the internet and found enough evidence to satisfy me that adoptasniper.org is an actual organization of military and police snipers from around our great nation looking for sympathy (and money for new stuff) to help them defend America from criminals and terrorists. From the adoptasniper.org website: "Who are We? Oh well, now that is good to know. And they say the jihadi's are sadistic maniacs who love injury, suffering, and bloodshed. Sheesh. These are the kind of boys who are raised in suburban affluence probably playing war video games on their parent's big screen TV who see sport and fun at the thought of killing the "other" who in this case happen to be Iraqis. If they'd been alive thirty years ago would have been Viet Namese or "gooks" in the idiom of that day. Their parents must be so proud of them I wonder sometimes whether people who favor all this war and bloodshed are congenitally unable to summon any kind of empathy for people not like themselves? It seems plausible to me as an explanation. Otherwise you'd have to assume that Middle America is raising a generation of American Psychos. How about a "war game" where you get to fit a 19-year-old ex-Marine amputee with prosthetic legs or recording books on tape for 22-year-old ex-soldiers who've been blinded? I don't imagine that the video game companies would find much of a market for games like that. Games like that are not funny or amusing some would say? You're damn right they aren't. The idea that this kind of thing is funny is tragic, but if the University of Wisconsin College Republican Club was serious that is just downright scary. "Please buy FBI Special Agent Lon Horinuchi a box of ammo or new sling for his rifle. Your gift keeps on giving", could be a slogan for the U of W College Republicans next charity fundraising event. In a 1998 letter to American Catholics Pope John Paul admonished America for creating a culture of death as he put it. He was right then and more so now as things have only gotten worse in that regard as the reporters from al-Jazzera have pointed out to the rest of the world. In a classic piece of non-interventionist advocacy President John Quincy Adams spoke of an America that doesn't run about the world looking for monsters to destroy. Which was then and is now excellent advice both practically and morally. But the monsters our culture of death has created at home is creating monsters abroad that want to hurt us as we've hurt them. Arrogance mixed with religious fundamentalism is what sows the seeds from which our monsters, both foreign and domestic spring forth. I wish though that EA games or Sega would make a video interactive game about working in a veteran's hospital or an Army field hospital. I have to believe before I give up all hope that these bloodthirsty College Republican knuckle-heads would develop some sense of empathy if not for Iraqi's then at least their own kind, young American men like themselves. I have to believe this or else go mad.
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