Friday, November 21, 2003

WHY DO YOU PEOPLE HATE AMERIC -- ER, I'M REALLY REALLY SORRY, PLEASE PUT THE GUN DOWN...

In a red state, there's some not-at-all liberal resistance to Bushism:

Geuda Springs is a little town in southern Kansas, not too far from the Oklahoma border. About 200 decent, proud and sometimes kind of ornery people live there, and, precisely because they’re so independent-minded there’s a whiff of outlaw about the reputation of the place. Earlier this month, just to raise some eyebrows, the Geuda Springs town council passed an ordinance requiring every head of family to own a gun, and ammunition, and be ready to use it.  
   
...If the administration believes folks like these are buying the official line from Washington, it had better take another look. They’re thinking long and hard about the way this war is being waged and what it means to their own ferocious sense of freedom.

...“I was in the military for five years,” said Cook, who works now at the GE plant over in Arkansas City, Kans. He enlisted in the Army when he was 18, he said, and served as a medic on rescue helicopters. His wife stood by listening in the driveway and his kids peered at us from the back seat of his pickup. Cook took the dark lenses off the front of his glasses, so we’d make eye contact, I figured. “This war sucks,” he said, and looked over at his family. “If I were running the country I’d be taking care of my
own people.”

What should have been done in Iraq? “Our technology is so far superior to anyone else in the world,” said Cook, “I don’t see why we couldn’t have made that place a parking lot and started from scratch.” If we weren’t going to do that, he said, he wasn’t sure what we were doing there. “It really does upset me to see anybody lose their life over this. Hell, we’re still chasing ghosts in Afghanistan! We are spread so thin. We may have a problem protecting our own home town some day if we get so spread out.”

...a heavyset man with white hair pulled back in a ponytail and a devilishly well-trimmed beard came through the door. Brewer, 53, a retired railroad worker, said there were lots of reasons to have an ordinance like that in a town like this, not least the fact there’s no police force because the city can’t afford one, and the sheriff’s office is on the other side of the county. But, yeah, he said, the ordinance was supposed to make a point. “It’s one more stumbling block for people who’d like to take our guns away,” he said. “The Patriot Act, as far as I can see, is violating just about every right we got,” said Brewer. “You know, about the only right we’ve got left is firearms.”...


--Christopher Dickey* in Newsweek

I think Howard Dean could get some votes here.

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*Son of James Dickey, who wrote Deliverance.
       

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