When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blasted President Bush last Thursday for being incompetent
Republicans responded with the standard rhetoric.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay called her remarks partisan hatred and said she was putting American lives at risk by criticizing Bush's foreign and economic policies.
Such monolithic behavior has been typical of conservatives since the invasion of Iraq, and it has become much more common since the administration went on the defensive.
The excuse that a country at war must rally around its leader got stale for most of us before this war even began. But now, in order to shrug off responsibility for our collective national position up You-Know-What Creek, neoconservatives insist the blood of dying soldiers is now on opponents' hands.
An unsettling theme has emerged in this administration: a desire to instill fear in the public as a means of controlling, and effectively silencing, opposition. However, if dissent is being suppressed, chances are protesters are hitting too close to the mark.
And while fear mongering reigns over foreign policy questions, blatant suppression works within domestic political circles.
Until last Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft had been prosecuting environmental group Greenpeace for the actions of two of its members.
Two years ago, a pair of protesters boarded a ship carrying illegally harvested Brazilian timber and unfurled a banner that read, President Bush Stop Illegal Logging.
Although it was just a harmless act of civil disobedience, Ashcroft pursued a criminal case against Greenpeace under trumped-up charges. Thankfully, the case was thrown out of court.
The environmental movement seems to be suffering more than anyone from this crackdown on protest activity, and the T-word often is neoconservatives' weapon of choice.
Seemingly prompted by attacks on SUVs and other large vehicles, the Stop Terrorism of Property Act of 2003 suggests that if I destroy some property, and said destruction is motivated by my political standpoint, then I am guilty of eco-terrorism a new federal crime as defined by this legislation. Nevermind the fact that these acts of vandalism are overwhelmingly nonviolent.
I'm not a fan of making laws against motives. There already are laws on the books against violence and vandalism; that's more than sufficient. We don't need laws regulating the political beliefs behind our actions.
In keeping with that view, I oppose hate crime legislation not because I support hate crimes, but because we have laws against murder and abuse already. Again, regulating opinions, no matter how onerous those views might be, is a scary step toward fascism. It wouldn't be fair to apply my principles only to my own side of the ideological spectrum. They are guilty of buzzword abuse too, calling corporate polluters and complacent officials toxic terrorists and politicizing every subject that suits their purposes. The current political climate of intolerance toward dissent is McCarthy-era at best and downright authoritarian at worst.
To prohibit opposition, via legal or political means, is to undermine a system crafted in order to avoid such strong-arm tactics. But this is exactly what the administration and some Republicans in Congress have been doing.
Meanwhile, the truth behind our political debates is getting clouded, their meaning is getting lost and normal public grumbling is turning into unrest.
-Lindsey McKay is a senior magazine journalism major. Send her an e-mail at Libertysun04@yahoo.com.
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