Dear Anonymous.....

This is addressed to the people who think they should be able to share their opinion as if it were a muffled voice, coming from behind a curtain. I am only rarely--as in once to date--willing to publish a comment that is being offered by a person who is either too scared or unwilling to assume responsibility for what they are saying.

I did post one such comment recently because the person wanted to share a resource that could be of value to readers.

For the most part, however, if you can't stand behind what you are saying, it probably isn't worth saying.

One such comment came just the other day, in the form of a rather pointed question: Are you saying that the hordes of people won't be coming out of the cities looking for what we have? That's a paraphrase, but the essence is accurate.

Answer: No. But, the question in response to this possibility is, how are we going to behave as a nation of people? If we are now working on mentally preparing ourselves to regard people who have been caught-up in a disaster as 'zombies', i.e. 'other', and are girding our loins to be able to shoot large numbers of them, thereby increasing the chances of our own survival...then we are a nation of people who have lost our way.

There is an alternative, but the people who are getting ready for the Great Zombie Invasion don't want to hear about it. Last summer in Vermont, as a result of the hurricane, turned tropical storm, that came up the east coast, entire towns were flooded and some were completely cut-off as bridges were destroyed. It was a dire situation. No, it wasn't Katrina, but, for the people caught up in it, it was every bit as serious. And, in their intrepid yankee way, Vermonters responded to it by pulling together. I saw one t-v interview with a woman who had lost absolutely everything. Her most notable comment was: "We're going to be okay because we have each other."

If indeed we are, at some point, going to have a situation in which very large numbers of people are put at risk, if we eventually do face a breakdown of the logistical supply system, and people are going to go hungry, we will be forced to decide WHO WE REALLY ARE. And, if the answer to that is that we're not much better than a pack of wild animals who are willing to kill our fellow Americans...all the while pretending that they are not really even human beings....then we are also going to be confronted with the realization that we're a far cry from being the nation of courageous, hard-working, inventive, NOBLE and compassionate people that we have been imagining we are all these generations.

We will be just one step this side of being inhuman ourselves...and, at this moment, I just am not at all sure that I would be willing to struggle to survive so that I can live in such a place. There was a time when I felt en-nobled by being an American. I was willing to die for this country and the ideals it represents, and I put my ass on the line to back that sentiment up: three years in the infantry.

Now, I am looking around and I am hearing the din of selfish people figuring out how to be selfish in ways that are positively nightmarish, not merely lacking in compassion or a willingness to sacrifice for others, but so utterly devoid of humanism that embracing becoming a human predator is now somehow justified.

Sooner or later.....we WILL BE TESTED. And, if this is our response, if survival depends on being the baddest s.o.b., with a willingness to kill anybody we feel threatened by, we will have become that which we have traditionally eschewed and rejected: a nation of hateful and selfish people who care only about our own well-being.

Sucks, if you ask me.