The following comes from James P. Hogan’s 1987 novel Endgame Enigma:
Foleda stared at the window. "There was something that happened when I was a teenager—not really so sensational, but it’s always stuck in my mind, so I suppose it must have made some kind of impression. Two people came to have dinner with us one night—a Jewish couple that my parents had been friends with for a long time. They talked about the past year that they’d spent traveling around overseas. All their lives they’d been busy with their own affairs, until one day they looked at each other and realized they hadn’t seen anything of the world, and if they didn’t do something about it soon, they never would.""Too wrapped up with family and business, you mean?" Barbara said.
"Yes, exactly. Anyhow, I can remember Ben—that was his name—saying to my father, ‘You’ve known us for a long time, Chuck. I’ve never had any time for politics. But, do you know, after what we saw in other places, I never want to set foot outside this country again. I don’t want to see our grandchildren growing up the way we saw others made to. And I’ll tell you something else: I would give thousands of dollars, no, tens of thousands, to any political party—Republicans, Democrats, I don’t care; they’re all the same to me—just so long as they’re committed to defending this country.’ "
The sentiment Ben expressed in that snippet makes me want to weep. When Hogan wrote that novel, it was still possible to believe that Americans of all political alignments were committed, whether explicity or implicitly, to defending this country. But the evidence of our time speaks otherwise. Indeed, not even the Republicans are as committed to the defense of these Untied States as they should be. Their behavior in office suggests that while defending America is worthy of endless lip service, their actual priorities are...flexible.
What do you think, Gentle Reader?
0 Yorumlar