Tolerance?

Sometimes I wonder just how much people will take. Perhaps they just don't care. Maybe they don't see the urgency I do. I don't really know.

In my classes, I tell students the Japanese (and the other fascist/Axis powers) threw test after test at the US (and other democracies) to see how far they could go. Japan in Manchuria, Germany and Hitler in the Rhineland. Austria, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Memel, Italy in Ethiopia, Libya, etc. They, the Axis, wanted to see how much the democracis would take. I ask students if Japan had to be wondering just what it would take the Americans to fight back, that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because we had shown that we wouldn't really fight back or, if we did, would do so only reluctantly and half-heartedly. Of course, the Japanese gambled and it was a reasonable gamble, based on what the US had shown over a decade of inaction and empty messages, doctrines, etc. Japan lost the gamble, but....

How much will we take today, not necessarily from outsiders, but from others, esp our government leaders, our so-called opinion makers in the media? Apparently, we haven't learned our lessons, that people will push and push the envelope until they are stopped or think they will be stopped. Two examples, just from yesterday.

I was almost floored to hear on the radio a Congressman, Bart Stupak, say if a majority of the elected representatives in Congress vote to pass something, it's OK if that something violates the Constitution!!!!! Yes, he said that; I hope he didn't mean it. Now, to be fair, he had to be somewhat flustered as the host was ripping him to shreds in the dialog (although I'm pretty sure the Congressman didn't know/realize that). But he was asked to repeat what he said and he did. So, apparently, our elected representatives in Congress are not bound by the Constitution. Am I paranoid or is that really, really disturbing? No doubt, this guy will be re-elected in 2010 by people who aren't paying attention, are too busy with more important things, or whatever. The shame is that this guy gets to vote on matters than affect me! Maybe Hamilton was right.

Then, on another show, I listened to a TV host (recorded) try to rip on that Calif beauty contest winner who either had an affair or posed for a nudie mag or something that seemed to contradict her more conservative morals. Now, that this was done quite a while ago is, apparently, irrelevant. That this scumbag, who has been married, what seven times!, had the nerve, with no shame at all, to be critical of someone else ("Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!") is startling, too. That he has allowed his TV show to be a forum for some of the most decadent political and entertainment figures is also a sign of his hypocrisy. He never grills them on their decadence! Hypocrisy lives! And no one cares....

Oh, I have a headache.