1/11 -- a (mostly) Shameful Anniversary

Let us take a moment today to reflect on the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. It was opened 6 years ago today. From the moment that it opened it has been the shame of America and all Americans should be ashamed.

The prison at Guantanamo is a repudiation of the ideals on which America was founded:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Do you read this as I do? Do our leaders? Don't they understand that America can conquer the world, not with the force of a gun, but with the force of our ideals. Unfortunately it is these very ideals that we are sacrificing by allowing the torture and indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" (whatever that means). We are giving the terrorists better PR than they could have ever concocted themselves. We are ensuring a vicious cycle of terror and war. But then perhaps that is really the point of it all anyway. It is said that "War is the health of the state" and in a situation of eternal war state power grows unchecked, and state power always grows at the expense of individual freedom.

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I say it is mostly shameful because today is also the anniversary of the death of Robert Anton Wilson, a great man:

All hail Bob!