Did you ever make a stew or something and taste it and say, "There's something missing... Oh no! I forgot the salt!"
There is some fundamental ingredient missing in the souls of my audience, and I've been trying to put my finger on it for some time now. But now I know what it's called: shame.
My audience, which is principally comprised of "journalists," "lawmen," and "military" men, lack some basic human capacity to feel shame. It's like the sociopath who is born without the capacity for empathy. My audience --to the extent that a particular person is a member of the aforementioned groups-- lack the ability to feel shame.
On Friday, Attorney General Holder announced that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four others accused in the plot will be tried in a fashion that will not further erode American justice or shame Americans. It promises to finally provide justice for the victims of 9/11.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/opinion/14sat1.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
So I sometimes regard my audience as an alien species. I am no longer angry at what I earlier perceived to be an unwillingness to do the right thing. Now I've decided that it's some congenital defect in their characters. "Is it a genetic deficiency? Some hormonal imbalance?"
"Oh, come on, Chris, you know how it is. It's the biz: Once the ticker tape of current events carries a thing into the past, it becomes 'advocacy journalism.' And that's not we do. We're professionals. You know how it is."
No, I don't know how it is. I am not a journalist or a comedian or a lawman.
...Or maybe I am...
But whatever the case, what you people claim to be doing is alien to me. We are in no way related.
