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Sep. 4th, 2007
Belligerent Ignorance
Sep. 4th, 2007 04:39 pmMore and more evidence is appearing that many US citizens will defend to someone else's death their right to be ignorant of reality. I'm specifically thinking of recent revelations (in large part through Freedom of Information Act requests) that soldiers in Iraq believe that their acts of murder, rape and torture are legal under the rules of law. A prime example is Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer. _After_ being convicted of killing an interrogation subject by suffocating him with a sleeping bag wrapped around his head, Welshofer wrote a letter appealing for clemency. He argued that not only were his despicable actions legal, but necessary to do his job. He wrote "An interrogation without stress is not an interrogation - it is a conversation."
We saw the same thing following the _Columbia_ tragedy. At the formal inquest, the managers who had actively worked against the engineers to prevent them even being able to determine just how bad the heat shield damage was claimed their decisions were correct... even though those decisions had destroyed an important national asset and - oh, yes - killed the crew. NASA quietly retired those managers, but as recent events have demonstrated has done nothing to correct the base problem.
People, this has to stop. Refusing to accept reality is a sign of mental illness. In this case the illness appears to be social rather than individual, but it's still an illness. The cause is probably complex and the cure will likely not be easy or swift, but it has to be done.
We saw the same thing following the _Columbia_ tragedy. At the formal inquest, the managers who had actively worked against the engineers to prevent them even being able to determine just how bad the heat shield damage was claimed their decisions were correct... even though those decisions had destroyed an important national asset and - oh, yes - killed the crew. NASA quietly retired those managers, but as recent events have demonstrated has done nothing to correct the base problem.
People, this has to stop. Refusing to accept reality is a sign of mental illness. In this case the illness appears to be social rather than individual, but it's still an illness. The cause is probably complex and the cure will likely not be easy or swift, but it has to be done.
