Letters to the Editor
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A good lesson
This is a good lesson in two regards. One is that as a people we have reached a state of near-total corruption. The Patriot Act may be an evil piece of legislation, but it wouldn't have passed in an honorable Congress. The Justice Department and its policing arm, the FBI, wouldn't be mounting such phony prosecutions if they were honorable men. The judge and jurors wouldn't go along with such a sham trial if they weren't already compromised as human beings.
The other lesson is about "activists" who commit crimes as a method of effecting change. They are grandstanders, always. Ego-centered macho types, they feed on the energies and selflessness of those who do the hard work to save our civilization from ruin. When faced with responsibility for their actions, they cave.
I lived in a house with the leadership of the midwestern branch of Greenpeace in the early 80s. While they were off to protest a nuclear plant in "Canada," a stranger showed up. He made a lot of talk about how he was at "Rocky Flats" (in Colorado, a nuclear weapons plant, site of numerous protests), and was asking a lot of questions about the Greenpeace bunch. He didn't exactly come right out and suggest violence, but he said things to the effect that he was into "direct action." I felt uneasy about him, and didn't let him go past the living room. I was glad when the Greenpeacers came back a couple of hours later. They got rid of him immediately.
Wakeup calls like this come every so often. This one makes two things abundantly clear: our government/political class is completely corrupt, and anyone who advocates violence or destruction should never be trusted, and avoided completely. Prosecuters make their reputations on convictions, then they run for governor. In their mad quests for political power, the lives of the innocent matter not a whit. In the grandstanding "activists" quests for "underground" glory, the lives of others than themselves also matter not a whit.
These times will pass, but until they do, great care is called for in all that we do.