Tautologies are dangerous things. Tautological thought is the realm of the crackpot and the corrupt. Such ideas are championed by conspiracy theorists and illegitimate governments. The formula for tautology is “X proves Y because X, or some other factor (i.e.,Z), is preventing us from seeing a connection to Y.”
While we believe that government currently controls a sizable portion of the crackpot market, we’re inclined to put government where it belongs–in the corrupt category. Government is always in the tautology business but these days, they’re back in it with a new passion. the latest and greatest food for suckers is the idea is that we have “sleeper cells” all over the United States and the inside of 60 countries.
Sleeper cells, as we are properly educated, are collections of men of Arab or South Asian descent who appear to be your average beer drinking, pot smoking, sex starved, poverty stricken college student but that is just an elaborate ruse. They are really out to create mayhem and mass murder against “Freedom loving peoples” and “Our way of life.”
We can’t actually prove the existence of sleeper cells but we know they exist because Tom Clancy wrote about them and the members of sleeper cells are very, very clever. They don’t leave clues like normal criminals.
Whatever it takes, we’re going to find these sleeper cells.
This is the kind of FUBAR thinking used by the Bush Administration to unlawfully detain hundreds of people and embed suspicion of thy neighbor in the American public. If the administration is given free rein to sell tautological ideas to the public, they will create the most outrageous ideas possible. By 2004, a vote against Bush will be a vote for terrorists.
That’s probably not the worst it can get.
If you can accept the loss of civil liberties in one group on the basis of an unreasonable accusation that otherwise average clones are secretly plotting against you, then you will accept the loss of civil liberties for everyone.
