Change that feels like vertigo

That whiplash again, like the one that almost took my head off at the end of January '01 — the Clinton apologists who had believed in bombing Baghdad and monitoring everyone's personal e-mails and bank accounts were new converts to peace and privacy. The not-Clintonistas were putting their faith in a new face that did not belong to Clinton and confident the country was moving back to the way things ought to be.

Now they've switched places again. My head wobbles on my poor stressed neck as I do double-takes for the radio talkers and other self-described conservatives who only now are realizing that the US of A is on a totalitarian neo-socialist track, as if this only began Jan. 20. The not-Bushes are putting their faith in a new face that is not Bush's and confident the country is moving back to the way things ought to be.

I started getting concerned back when Bush I was talking about a New World Order and mustering up new taxes and a big new war. Each administration since then has stepped deeper into the abyss, and people's perception of right and wrong flip-flopped depending on whether the Rs or the Ds held the White House.

I remember reading about a study that indicated partisanship affects the brain in odd ways that make the same behavior good or evil depending on whether your party committed it. The strange thing about the transition to a new president is how quickly this conversion happens. Whiplash is the best word I can muster to describe it.

If I thought my success and freedom were dependent on the U.S. government, I would be very discouraged now. I don't hold out much hope that the trends of the past 20 years are going to be reversed anytime soon. But governments cannot give us freedom; they can only take it away. It's past time I mentioned what cool things lewlew said recently about this subject; read and be encouraged.

Oceania is at war with Eastasia and aligned with Eurasia; this has always been so. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.