re: Setting the example
"What Bush, Cheney Rumsfeld and Gonzales did was open the floodgates to terror and torture, not close them."
If floodgates refers to your awareness of some things, it might fair to say.
You could know more about the world we live in if you didn't spend so much time "studying" the visitations of space aliens. It's true, that it's easier to spend time looking at threats that aren't a real threat or unpleasant. Therein lies the advantage of worrying about Space aliens or Global warming- it's emotionally easier.