I finished reading Them: Adventures With Extremists last night. I was about a hundred pages from the end when I went to bed, but I had to finish it. I was too unsettled not to. I have all these unpleasant thoughts running through my head that I want to get down so I can hopefully get some comments on them before I really sit down to write them out, especially if you’ve read the book, or watched The Secret Rulers of the World.

I was truly disturbed by the people profiled in the book. Here are the unformed thoughts rolling around in my noggin:

• It feels like everyone’s story is true to a degree. The problem is that each on of the “extremists” projects their own personal prejudices. There’s a group of mostly white, conservative Christian radicals, and the Islamic Fundamentalists who think the world is run by the Jews. The Irish Protestant Extremists think it’s the Catholics. The people actually in the group these folks think is the New World Order really don’t give the extremists a second thought. What if they’re all right? What does that mean for me, sitting here somewhere between the different camps?

• The extremists are called extremists because they left the mainstream of their (mostly) religions because they became entranced by a cause, or because they felt the World was against them. It feels like they’ve decided that this New World Order is the reason their lives suck and have vowed to fight it. It feels like class warfare to me, with one side (the Bilderbergs of the world) so removed from the battle they don’t even smell the blood.

• Can these extremists be brought back into the mainstream? Is there some way to extinguish the hate without extinguishing them? Should we try? Do we try because we can’t handle people who don’t fit into a nice little box?

• The Ruby Ridge / Waco chapter was probably the most discomforting part of the book. Both events were so badly handled by the government. But, was it part of this vast conspiracy, or was it just sheer incompetance?

I don’t honestly know what I think about everything in the book. It’s too much to take in and try to think about in one sitting. What do you think?

Michelle’s at it again, blasting someone who’s lamenting us killing Uday and Qusay Hussein. Now, I’m not sad they’re dead. But, it would have been nice to capture them alive and put them on trial for their crimes. They could even be tried by the new Iraqi Governing Council, as a show that they do actually have some power. I don’t see how people can view these two psychopaths’ deaths as a victory for the President. He didn’t find them, corner them, or shoot them. The military did. The military, and most likely military intelligence, deserve the credit for this one, plain and simple. No matter what the President says, we’re still at war in Iraq. It’s a different phase of the war, but still war. Claiming military victories or losses as political capital is the height of hypocrisy, no matter which side of center your politics lie.

Michelle says she’s a cheerleader for the deaths of those who want us dead. I hope that’s hyperbole. I’d rather be a cheerleader for justice. I would love to see Saddam and those that worked for him face the people of Iraq and be held accountable for their crimes. That’s justice. Just killing people who disagree with us is the bully’s way out, and just saying, “Well, we’re the biggest and strongest so we’re right” isn’t a justifiable reason.

Justice is more important than death. Seeing someone dead doesn’t mean their influence has died. Killing someone in battle makes them a martyr to their supporters. Trying them in front of an impartial court (ok, for the Hussein family, that could be difficult) makes them guilty, and decreases their “Martyrability”. If everyone can see their crimes laid out in the bright lights of a court room, it becomes that much harder for reasonable people to support them. The unreasonable and zealots will support them no matter what (just look at the militia movement and Tim McVeigh), but they’re not really who we should be trying to persuade. The reasonable people in Iraq and the Middle East need to see that we’re not butchers. We’re offering them something better – the rule of law. We’re offering them self-determination and freedoms that they’ve never experienced. Once the people of Iraq can see that, and we can convince them (and ourselves) that we’re not there for our own selfish purposes, we’ll be on our way to stability and peace.

I understand that the Brothers Hussein put up a fight, so their deaths were probably unavoidable. I’m not blaming anyone involved in the firefight for their deaths. They acted as they should have – they returned fire. It think would have been better had they been taken alive and stood trial. Am I glad they’re no longer going to kill, torture and maim their people? Yeah, I am. I wish they could have been put on trial first though.

Most of you know me as a pretty left-leaning kind of guy. I honestly didn’t start out that way. I was raised Republican (not that politics was religion in my house – we rarely talked about it, but my parents are both on the Right), and voted for George Bush the Elder in ’94, and voted for John McCain in the 2000 Republican Primary. Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, George W. and John Ashcroft forced me out of the GOP for good. But, I still have a lot of respect for a lot of Senators on the right, and don’t think Republicans are evil. I think the party has been taken over by the Religious Right and the Neo-Conservatives and that concerns me. The moderate voice of the party has been effectively silenced.

This should change. There are some good ideas on the moderate Right, especially when it comes to the now forsaken idea of fiscal responsibility and I would love a bipartisan moderate majority in the Senate (I have no hope for the House) and a moderate Democrat or Republican in the White House. George W. Bush, with all of his “compassionate” conservatism he touted during the 2000 campaign is far removed from anything that smells like compassion. There is hope! What hope, you ask? Let’s get someone to run against GW in 2004! I nominate John McCain and John Warner. They both have better qualifications on national security and defense (because whoever inherits the White House after GW better be able to handle this mess) than the current President. They’re both moderate and have proven track records of bipartisanship, and they’re both willing to buck the party line and go with their conscience.

I know, I’m crazy. I’m still recovering from the flu, but you know, I’d be willing to sacrifice the chance to vote for Howard Dean in the VA Primary if I could vote for John McCain again and show that it’s time to abandon the radical fringes of the Republican party and move towards the center with the great majority of the country.