Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Loose Cannon

Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) wants to resume nuclear testing in the desert West.

What makes this interesting is that in 1979, Cannon was one of the lawyers who filed a landmark lawsuit called Irene Allen v. United States, which sought government compensation for the victims of fallout from earlier nuclear tests.

Cannon has also claimed that fallout from nuclear tests killed his father.

Cannon says he believes his own father died of cancers that were caused in part by his exposure to radioactive fallout from the tests.
Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and we'll proceed.

If you think that Cannon must have a fairly compelling reason for resuming tests that he himself believes harmed his family and his fellow citizens, you're mistaken. Cannon's rationale for a new round of testing is simply to frighten the "evildoers" into embracing civilization:
"We need to give them the fear of destruction and hopefully over time people will recognize that the democratic system works."
Sounds reasonable. After all, who but an old Scrooge could fail to admire a system that allows gibbering lunatics like Cannon to lurch aimlessly through the halls of power?

By the way, if you're one of those unhappy souls who thinks that we recently went to war with an essentially unarmed country that didn't attack us, Cannon's got a stern message for you:
"Democracies don't create wars. Evil people who assume positions of power create wars."

3 comments:

Cervantes said...

And not only that, but Chimpy said some time last year that "Democracies don't manufacture weapons of mass destruction&tm;," or words to that effect.

Either he forgot about that strong, silent military type with the briefcase who follows him around all the time, or maybe he's right, it would be wrong to imply that the U.S. is, you know, a democracy . . .

Anonymous said...

Cannon's got a stern message for you:
"Democracies don't create wars. Evil people who assume positions of power create wars."
There you have it, the unvarnished truth, straight from the horses' ass.

Anonymous said...

"We need to give them the fear of destruction and hopefully over time people will recognize that the democratic system works."

I can't speak for THEM, but he sure does give ME the fear of destruction, and he makes me DOUBT that our democratic system is working.