Take One For The Team, Nevada

It was reported today that Crystal Wosik, who will represent Nevada (Greatest Of All The States) in Saturday's Miss America Pageant was asked about the federal government's controversial plan to store the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain during an interview with the judges. What does Miss Nevada think about placing tons of radioactive material that will be deadly for 10,000 years about 90 miles from Las Vegas' population of 1.6 million people? Apparently she thinks that since the stuff has to go somewhere it might as well be here. And when she was further queried as to the possibility of people dying as a result of this plan? She says that we'll have to "take one for the team." The saddest thing is that although I wasn't there, I doubt this was said with even a hint of irony. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not under the illusion the Miss Nevada has any policy-making authority, but I doubt her attitude is all that unusual, even in this very state.

It reminds me of something a friend told me the other day. She said that in discussing the NSA wiretapping scandal with a few people, she was met with the following actual justifications for the NSA's actions--and remember, these are from grown, assumedly educated, non-beauty pageant contestant human beings: 1.) Fearless Leader is just trying to protect us from Terrorism so (I'm assuming here) anything He does is okay; and 2.) If you don't have anything to hide, why should you care if the government is spying on you? I swear, this is the mentality we're dealing with. I'm told there where other arguments too, like "there's nothing illegal about it" (although of course it's completely illegal--just read the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, particularly 50 U.S.C. 1809) and of course the ever reliable standby of the obedient Fox News watcher, "Clinton did it too!" (which is also demonstrably untrue, but as Stephen Colbert would query, why should facts get in the way?) I don't know if whomever she was speaking with was being willfully obstinant or if they just failed 8th grade civics, but either way it's scary.

Seriously, when did so many people become so willing to be led around by the nose, trusting blindly that this government has their best interests at heart? More to the point, how do you even begin to talk to someone who honestly thinks 'if you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't care if the government violates civil liberties and breaks the law'? How do you reason with someone who thinks that if Nevadans are killed because someone decided this state was a good place to dump thousands of tons of radioactive waste that we're "taking one for the team?" WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT MOVING A RUNNER OVER TO SECOND BASE, GODDAMMIT!!!!!