Thursday, October 28th, 2004

A Chilling Story

My last post I talked about the anonymous note we got (pdf file, 505K) that contained a story about a father berating his child in an attempt to explain the war in Iraq. The note calls it “a chilling story.” And it is chilling–chilling in its horribleness. (Horribiltude? Horribility?)

Here’s why I call this a horrible story:

1) So the kid asks why we’re in Iraq, and the father can’t simply say, “Because our president thinks their leader would try to hurt us”? You can even leave off whether you agree with that assessment, if you want to.

2) What kind of psychotic father treats his kid this way? And what kind of mother lets him? Come on, this isn’t a drug intervention: the kid merely asked a question about politics.

3) Nothing in the story shows the “bad guy” gaining strength during his killing spree. If the bad guy is too strong for the kid at the end of the story, then he was too strong at the beginning. The kid wouldn’t have been able to stop him. So the kid was right: he did need help to stop the bad guy.

Now, why this is a bad analogy:

While it is true that Saddam Hussein was a brutal man who treated his people monstrously, and while he did attack Kuwait, killing everyone on the block would translate into attacking nearly every country on earth. That analogy would apply to, say, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Ghengis Khan, Napolean, Hitler…it’s hardly applicable to a two-bit dictator who couldn’t even go into the northern part of his own country.

So a better analogy might go something like this:

You are President Bush, and the houses on the block are countries. A street gang (we’ll call them The Base) breaks into your house and trashes your living room. You angrily swear to get revenge on the Crazy Old Man across the street. Your best friend and good neighbor Tony says, “No, no, George, The Base is hiding out in the house next door to the Crazy Old Man. Remember, Fundy Nutjob? Fundy invited The Base to come live with him, and they beat up Fundy’s brothers and locked up Fundy’s sisters. Come on–we’ll get the neighborhood together and take care of them.”

So you finally let Tony to convince you to go to Fundy Nutjob’s house. You and Tony and Jack and all the neighbors band together and go after The Base. You catch a lot of The Base, but before you finish, you start thinking about the Crazy Old Man next door. While you’re distracted, the ringleaders of The Base slip away.

Fundy Nutjob’s brothers and sisters beg you to stay until they grow up and can take care of themselves. They are terrified that Fundy will take over again and The Base will come back. But you are really, really fixated on the Crazy Old Man.

See, you and the Crazy Old Man go way back. Your daddy gave him a gun a dozen or so years ago, back when The Red Folk were trying to move into the neighborhood. But the Crazy Old Man, well, he’s crazy, and he started bad mouthing your family, even made some lame attempt to get some crook to shoot your daddy. And he treats his family like shit. The whole neighborhood would turn on him if it weren’t for one thing: he grows pot.* And you and all your neighbors have to have it.

So you leave Fundy Nut Job’s house and start making threatening gestures to the Crazy Old Man. “He’s dangerous!” you say. “He’s got a gun!”

Tony says, “Yeah, we know, but the police check up on him every week. His gun is out of bullets.”

“But…but…he is helping out The Base!”

Your old friend Jack chimes in. “No, he and The Base hate each other.”

“The Crazy Old Man is building a bomb in his garage! I’ve seen him!”

“Really?” Jack says. “The police didn’t see that when they checked up on him last week. Let’s call them in to check it out.”

“No! The police suck! I don’t answer to them.”

“Calm down, George. If the Crazy Old Man has a bomb in his garage, the police will find it and take care of it.” Tony and Jack call the police, and the police don’t find anything in the Crazy Old Man’s garage.

“See, George?” Jack says. “You must have been mistaken.”

“Shut up, Jack! You’re a pussy!”

“George, relax. We’ll get the police to set up full time surveillance.”

“I hate you, Jack! I never want to speak to you again.” When Tony tries to calm you down, you snap, “The police are useless. I’m going over to the Crazy Old Man’s house and kicking his ass. And Tony, you are coming with me, or I’ll never talk to you again, either! And you won’t get any of the old man’s pot.”

So you go over to the Crazy Old Man’s house, dragging Tony with you, and you kick the Old Man’s ass. His gun was out of bullets, so he didn’t put up much of a fight (being old and crazy, after all). And after you kick him out of his house, you go into his back yard and check out the pot.

Tony comes back and gets your attention. “Hey! George! What are you doing here? We have to search the garage for the bomb.”

“I’m busy, Tony.”

“George, the garage door is open, and street gangs like The Base are stealing everything!”

“Leave me alone, Tony. I’m busy.”

And so it goes. Eventually, the Crazy Old Man’s sons and daughters get fed up with you hanging out in their house and start fighting you.

But that’s only because they “hate your freedoms.”

* Thanks to Shaun Scott for the pot idea. I had initially thought of a big screen tv, but this is much more appropriate.

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