Post Three (email and forum responses)

I'll apologize ahead of time for cutting up your email, but you've made comments that have to be addressed separately.

(edited by request of person quoted)

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I have no sympathy for the war or for Bush or any other politician. It's true that they can send other people's kids into fight because that's a part of how our government works.
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While definitely true that right now our government can take volunteers and use them as they see fit, historically this is a pretty recent development. Conscription for the purposes of war is usually mandatory in countries that are not democratic and a draft actually was part of it until it was suspended due to the political minefield that was Vietnam. Now, while not necessarily a bad thing (that it was suspended), the Draft was at least somewhat of a way to level the playing field. If you weren't rich enough or powerful enough to get out of it, you'd have to go. A lot of today's senators and other assorted politicians were members of those units that served as draftees, so obviously many of them are not fans of a draft. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that when a draft came up, it didn't pass.

But why have they approved, either in committee or general vote, increased advertising expenditures for recruitment? Why have they built multimillion dollar recruitment centers in rapid time in the poorest of areas (Baltimore has one that looks like a gigantic shopping mall... and it's in the center of the Market Square area, which is home to lots of the city's recovering addicts and working poor) and made commercials showing people how to talk to their relatives about "accepting their sacrifice as one that is necessary to our liberties?" I think, and so would anyone who read and watched these ads, that they're desperate. They are seeing people who usually would cheer their sons' and daughters' entries into service turn their children away because they are frightened that their children won't come back alive. And the worst part for most of the recruiters and congressmen and other political figures is that when it comes to the lives of their own kids they AGREE.

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But since I had no say in going to war and nothing I could have said would have stopped it, I have to accept it in so far as I'll support our troops and anything they do because to do otherwise is the same as telling them that they are chumps and stupid to be where they are. I know they are not either of those things. They are for the most part, fine men and women and I can't denigrate their sacrifice by making a mockery of what they do, while being back here where I'm not being shot at.
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To address your second statement, I have to tell you that I agree that we should support the troops, but I don't think that accepting what they are being told to do is responsible or respectful. In fact, I think that by reducing them to pawns in a war that we accept yet somehow don't have "any control over" is the real way that we call them "stupid or chumps." What it ultimately comes down to, again, is what you think patriotism is. Patriotism, according to our own Constitution, is not sitting back and waiting for someone to tell us what to do. As citizens in a democracy, we do have representatives who help facilitate the process, but our penultimate role is Big Boss Man. We tell those guys, no matter how rich and powerful they think they are, what to do. And when we don't, we run the risk of doing our country a disservice. When they lie and we let them lie, we are cheating ourselves as well as the kids that we sent overseas.

You're right, those kids trust us to take care of them and appreciate their sacrifice. But appreciation of any gift requires the full and appropriate usage of that gift, which right now we are definitely not doing. By asking people who are trusting us with their lives to violate international law, psychologically harm citizens of a nation that we are supposedly helping, and betray our allies that are also in the field right alongside them, we're endangering them and disrespecting them at the same time.


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Her protests won't end the fighting. If it would, we would all go out and protest. Even if it did end it at the time, it will come back after us another day. The inevitable will happen, regardless of what we do in the meantime.
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You've got that backwards. Her protests alone won't end the fighting. If we all went out and protested together, it would end, because you can't silence everyone. The inevitable will most certainly happen if WE BELIEVE THAT IT WILL regardless of what we do in the meantime.

Throughout history, protest has stopped tanks, gave me the right to exist as an black man, allowed Christians all over the world to read the Bible in their own language as opposed to listening to a priest read it in Latin, gave women the right to vote, stopped a war, ended lynchings as legal resolution to conflict.. the list goes on and on. But we as people have decided to not believe in it as a salve for the inequality of our system because those that have money to buy airtime told us it was pointless. It may seem hopeless right now, but that's what people WANT you to believe. In truth, there's more evidence now more than ever that we're at a tipping point in terms of socioeconomic and political change. But the proof of this pudding lies with us. If WE don't act, nothing will get done.


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Was her son better or more important than those still facing death every hour of every day?
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No one is more important than another, but I don't think that she's calling for answers just for her son. I think that the answer that she could have gotten from GW was probably one applicable to all. But I think you should direct those questions to those who haven't had to sacrifice their children to the war machine because its obvious that they don't value any soldier's life if they'll send them out on falsehoods.


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Or we can give up and let the terrorists of the world take over. At least I'm inclined to fight for our way of life the best way I can, as imperfect as it is. It's far better than a life under Islam.
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Islam is a lot like Christianity. Imagine if someone in Iran said the same thing about Christianity. The first question you'd have is "Why? What have I done?" because most likely, at least in the US, you're of that particular faith. But then, the second question, which is most important, is "Which Christianity?" Within Islam, there's a heap of different sects and branches. Some of them, like the insanely orthodox (or unorthodox, depending on your division) Islam that is practiced by terrorists, aren't even endorsed by clerics because they usually are in violation of doctrine (the 9/11 attackers, for example, wore cologne and went to strip clubs, which breaks tons of Islamic rules.) Then there's Sufism, which is a kind of ecstatic Islam that's not too far from being parallel to a Baptist (there's a lot of great Sufi poetry... try Rumi or Shams if you're interested... I'll throw you a link if you want one). Then there's the ones in the middle - Sunni, Shia, - and the ones that want to be a part of the faith but aren't yet considered true Islam, whatever that means, - Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, etc. With all those different sects, you know what they say when someone asks them who they are? They say, "I'm Muslim," just like a Presbyterian and a Baptist would say they're "Christians." But Christians do bad things, just like Muslims, yet no one in the US is declaring a moratorium on hiring Christian professors or closing universities that are faith based. We're also not deporting Seventh Day Adventists because of David Koresh or imprisoning Pat Robertson.

I'd argue that we do these things, just the same as why we villify anyone, because they are different than what they're used to seeing in the roads or on the streets. But if we're smart, we'll recognize the beauty in our differences and recognize the human potential in each person.