Week of 10/08/2001

Brushed By E-E-EVIL-L-L
- by David Matthews 2

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." - Ayn Rand

Ever since we found out who some of the key players were in the September 11^th terrorist attacks on America, there’s been a really sick game being played by the members of the media. They want to know….

Have YOU been brushed by E-E-EVIL-L-L?

In their effort to show just how well insulated the unholy collection of terrorists were in America, the federal government and the media have been telling the public where these nineteen bastards were in the months, weeks, days, and minutes before carrying out their heinous acts of terrorism. They showed how they got into this country, where they lived, where they got their flight training, where they traveled to, even the gym where they worked out at, the ATM machines they used, and the kind of stores they visited. If they went someplace with a camera, it became part of the FBI’s file, and on the front page of newspapers and the leading story in the network news.

Yes, that’s right, my friends, you too may have been brushed by E-E-EVIL-L-L!

Now the government’s motive behind such a detailed investigation of these unholy bastards is simple: find out how they were able to carry out the attacks, who helped them – either knowingly or unknowingly – and who else might be alive and around to threaten America. Even a libertarian such as myself would have no qualms with the premise. It is, after all, a legitimate function of government to try to defend the people from outside attacks.

The media, on the other hand, seem to relish their sensationalizing this investigation. They’re following the places where these bastards were and talking to the people who may have known these terrorists. Did you know they were terrorists? Did they do anything suspicious? Did they reveal their plans to you?

In other words… they wanted to know what you felt like, now that you know that you were brushed by E-E-EVIL-L-L!

Yeah, like one of those bastards would go to Gold’s Gym and say "No, I cannot spot you! I am an Islamic holy warrior in training to destroy everything you evil Americans have ever created! Now leave me in peace, you worthless pig, so I may work out and prepare for the destruction of your satanic nation!"

Hey folks, here’s a hint: the real bad guys never reveal their plans until after they have been carried out! Okay? The only people who are stupid enough to do that are in the comic books and in the movies!

OF COURSE they’re not going to say or do anything suspicious to attract attention! Only the careless ones… like the idiot who only wanted to learn how to fly a plane and not go through take-off and landing procedures… are the ones that draw suspicion and get caught.

Then again, that seems to be something we Americans have a hard time grasping… we still think that bad guys are superstitious, cowardly people, who deep-down WANT to be captured and brought to justice. It’s hard for us to recognize that there really are some EVIL people in the world.

And it doesn’t help when the media sensationalizes those evil people by tracking down every aspect of their lives. Do we need to know that they went to the local Wal-Mart? Do we need to know that these bastards would figure out how to use an ATM? They learned how to fly commercial airplanes, it doesn’t take much to figure out the inner workings of an automatic teller machine! We have become so obsessed with this that I’m waiting for the media to report on what brand of toilet paper these bastards used, and a guess by some "expert" on how many sheets they would use to wipe their butts.

Yeah, I can see the headlines now: "TERRORISTS USED 2-PLY CHARMIN!"

Let’s get brutally honest here… as long as we continue to publicly look into the actions and the mentalities of those terrorist bastards, we glamorize their activities! We give credence where none should ever be given when we turn these people into media icons… even if it is for evil.

And this isn’t the first time we’ve done this either. We’ve glamorized the lives of many of history’s notorious bastards, from Al Capone on down to Ted Bundy, David Koresh, and Tim McVeigh. We’ve peered into their lives, partly to see what makes them tick, but also because we wanted to know just how evil these men can be.

That’s why I say we don’t give these bastards any more publicity than is really necessary. We did that with the two punks who terrorized Columbine High School, and made it into a media circus. Not only did it seem to inspire others to do similar acts, it also caused lawmakers, teachers, and principles to go on hysterical power trips.

But we didn’t do that with workplace violence, did we? When some office worker went nuts with automatic weapons, we didn’t make a big media circus about it, did we? There were no calls for a "violence-free workplace", were there? There was no demands on a "crackdown" on "possible weapons" at work, was there? No. We didn’t want to know who these loonies were, or what made them tick. They were nutcases, period. And for the most part, their tragedies were relatively limited. There were few copycat acts when there was really nothing to inspire copycats.

We also need to accept the fact that there is just no way we will be able to spot the next batch of terrorist bastards until they strike. In this vast, diverse country, just about anyone who keeps to himself or herself, and doesn’t do anything that would cause suspicion, can get away with just about anything.

Remember the New Age cultists who committed suicide so they could ride to heaven on the Hale-Bopp Comet? They certainly lived quiet lives, and nobody would have ever suspected that they would all kill themselves in such an orderly way.

Look, even if we all become good neighbors and knew who the person next door was, we’ll never know if they’re really quiet, peaceful people… or evil, sadistic monsters looking to destroy civilization. We’ll never know until after it happens. That is both the benefit and the curse of privacy.