Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The danger of moderation

I was watching the movie Conspiracy the other day and was struck by a horrible thought. The movie is about the terrible meeting where the Nazis decide to exterminate all the Jews in Europe. There was a bit of a debate about whether they should kill them all now, or just sterilize them all so that there would not be any more Jews born in Europe. Both options are awful.

But I found myself not exactly siding with the sterilization camp, if only because it didn't mean certain death for 10 million plus people. The movie made sure to point out to us viewers that both choices were rooted in deep seated hatred of Jews. The actors did a pretty good job of being thoroughly despicable. Yet still, because the only two choices given were awful, I found myself gravitating to the less awful.

Now, I am not a Teabagger claiming Obama is the second coming of Hitler (that distinction currently belongs to the great state of Arizona and their racist new law). But we are consistently being given only two choices, two awful choices, when it comes to the governing of our country. Do we keep the crappy health care system we have that kills 40,000 people a year, or make a slightly less crappy system that still won't cover everyone? Do we leave the banksters that held our entire economic system hostage alone, or do we put in place a regulatory system designed by the people who brought us the meltdown to begin with?

We are missing the good options, the right options. We are missing the person who stands up at the table and says "that's fucking murder". There are more than two options for fixing this country. The best options are not being suggested by the people we have given the power to, but because we only see the two main options, we can't even see how horrid they are anymore. We keep choosing sterilization over outright murder, but neither choice is moral or good.

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