Author: Al
Posted: 2006-10-11 17:00:33
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One should always take great care in deciding to try and argue down a friend. I have not taken such care because I am a little bit of a monomaniac. Even so, the tone of this dissertation is friendly. I mean no insult to my friend, in fact I have a great respect for him. I have oft considered him to be the Shaw to my Chesterton. But I rarely call him out on anything that we vehemently disagree on. This will certainly be the first time that it is in writing for the world to see. For those of you who are spectators in this debate, understand that my motives are to convince, not to attack. Hoops will know that from the outset.
For the uninitiated, I am responding to this post.
The first thing that I must do is start off on shaky ground. Luckily this ground is miles away from my main argument. Hoops starts with the admonishment that this is a cathartic rant. The trouble is, that I have found the idea of a cathartic rant to be a myth. Giving in to the desire to yell belligerently even on paper, just leads to more belligerence. Letting anger overtake you for a while just desensitizes one to anger. This is how it works for me anyway, and for all of the people that are close to me. The more we rant like this, the more we want to. Thus I try and avoid it. When my senses are with me, I can. I recognize that this may not be the case for everyone, but do not dismiss me out of hand. Your dismissal may well be your innate desire for more rage.
Now that this is taken care of, let us get to the real meat of the article. Let's give a little obvious history that Hoops has left out of his argument. Hitler had a nefarious purpose behind crediting us with his ideals in Mein Kampf. He wanted to win us over to his side. Oddly enough, this tactic has been repeated several times unsuccessfully. Ho Chi Minh tried to do it by using lines from our declaration of independence and constitution. What Hitler was doing was flattery. To a large extent it worked. Do you realize just how many Nazi sympathizers we had in our country at the outbreak of the war? Your Hitler argument ignores the real reasons for the text you site. Thus, it is invalid.
Next we move on to manifest destiny. I used to prod my favorite history professor with the line “If manifest destiny was so wrong, then how come it turned out to be so true?” To be sure, this is a child's response to the problem, but it is fun anyway. The real defense of manifest destiny is thus: Please stop glorifying the Native Americans. They were tribal people who constantly fought amongst themselves and had horrific practices that would give you nightmares for a week had you witnessed one, let alone been involved therein. They had made no remarkable technological or cultural advances in generations, and were bound to die out one way or another. They couldn't have been conquered by a nicer or more self-doubting people. Look at me. With my one sixteenth portion of Native American blood I qualify for all sorts of grants and loans and aid. I take absolutely none of it because I think that it is wrong for such people to exist within our country as they do.
That is going to offend a lot of people because it is blunt, but if you examine the realities of who the Indians were, you will come to my conclusion. Sure, they had a great respect for the environment, but they had little respect for other men.
Are you really going to bring up the annexation of Mexico? If so, you should point out that we captured Mexico City in that war but gave all of the land up to the Rio Grand back. This was not a selfless decision, but really, we did not set out to annex Mexico. It was a target of opportunity if you will. We would have much rather had the Canadian land that we conceded to the British so that we could fight the Mexican-American war.
Next you make more references to Nazis and Americans. That is a little beneath you. It is not, however, beneath me. You say that there are similarities between us, but you never directly state them. There is just some esoteric connection that we should all make so that your arguments have more weight. Well, we are nothing like the Nazis in our expansionist views, but I will tell you exactly how we are like the Nazis. The Nazis started their killing campaigns and eugenics programs with the very young, and then the very old, and then those who were deformed or ill, or too ignorant to cry foul. With abortions, and euthanasia, we are headed down the exact same path. We are even starting with the very same groups that the Nazis started with. The eugenics debate ended concisely at the end of WWII. The world saw the Nazi horrors and rejected the plan outright. Time has now passed and we are starting down that road again because of our forgetfulness. Make absolutely no mistake, eugenics will be the big debate of our time. With the way our nation is leading the race I hope that we do not turn into the proof by contradiction that Germany was. God help us if we are. Who will have to stand up and be the Bonhoeffer of America?
Now we must talk about the nuclear and fire bombing of Japan. Please read this selection from Joy Davidman about the bomb. Now, I want you to understand some things. Americans feared the Japanese more than any other nation. The Japanese had been ruthless in invading China. They had fought to the last man on most occasions when we engaged them. We did not do what we did out of abject malice. We did it because we could think of nothing else. Imagine the heartbreak of preparing to invade the main islands of the empire. How many lives would be lost? How many lives would be lost trying to hold the place together after we had inevitably won? Now imagine that you have a magic weapon. One that could level a city, and perhaps end the war. After such a long and bloody war, I cannot imagine any human being who would not trade the lives of every Japanese civilian for the lives of the soldiers who would be lost in such an invasion. Here is a chance to get away with far fewer deaths than that. At the time, we even thought that it was possible that this was the easiest way to let the Japanese off. You'd be crazy not to take that opportunity.
The firebombing of Tokyo is just an example that war is hell. We didn't know what else to do, and I think it takes a crazy amount of Hubris to condemn an action from so long ago in what was such a completely hellish time.
Now, I did not go through the school system here, but I know for a fact that late American history is taught in public schools elsewhere. I was educated on the bay of pigs, and Vietnam. Turn on the History Channel for God's sake! The information is everywhere. In college, I have taken a plethora of history courses. All of them that have dealt with America have dealt with the hard topics from these events, and even further back. Sure, high school history is pretty sanitized, but that is just to keep the kids from getting too disillusioned. Those that can handle the information unfiltered tend to seek it out for themselves.
Now friend, let's get a few things straight about the middle east. We have been fulfilling extremist propaganda there for as long as we have backed Israel. We did not attack Iraq before 9/11. Thus they obviously have some other beef with us. This war might add fuel to the fire, but that fuel is largely unnecessary to its continued growth, and the hope is, that this fuel will make the fire consume itself before we are more badly burned. I'll concede you one point right off the bat though, this war is being mismanaged pretty badly. All wars are. This one might even be going a little better than our more famous conflicts. Really look into WWII sometime, the boneheaded decisions made by the allies may have pushed V-E day back more than a year.
You say this war is for nothing. That is silly. Then you imply that the war was for oil. Then where the hell is all of that oil I signed up for? No, seriously. If we have traded blood for oil, then for God's sake show me the frickin' oil! (See what I mean about cathartic rants, that was just completely unnecessary.) There are lots of reasons why we could have invaded Iraq. To free the Kurds. Man, that would have been a noble reason, but unfortunately, that's not why we did it. To get rid of WMD. Well, I'll believe that when we ever find a significant quantity of the stuff. Because our legalistic society needs a way for the man in charge to “CYA.” That might just be it. Our society is dripping with problems created by people just wishing to do the minimum so that they are not blamed when things go wrong. This thought process is a cancer. At one time I truly believed it was the reason we went to war. Our president may have just wished to start this invasion to say that he was doing something to rid the world of destructive power in case we were attacked again. One flaw in this argument is that he's taken no shortage of flack for this decision, and had to know that this would be the case before hand. Thus he has not saved himself any trouble at all.
Here is what I think is the real reason. The middle east, as you say, has been drenched in conflict for a long time now. This does not look like a problem that will solve itself. Without American involvement these factions will continue to fight each other and thus insure more totalitarian rule. We come in and topple a corrupt government (perhaps the most corrupt) that we can, and perhaps with all of our might and infrastructure we can stabilize it long enough for a democracy to sprout. We establish permanent military bases there, and thus have a presence in the country if we need to deal with Iran or any other country that makes trouble. We then have a chance at being a stabilizing force for the whole region. Their stability ensures our stability. It isn't selfless, but everyone wins anyway. This was not pedaled to the country because they wouldn't buy it. Was that wrong? You bet! Would I have done things differently if I were in power? I doubt it.
Now, for your sake, let's clear up a few misconceptions about the President. He is not a monkey that thinks himself to be doing God's will. He is a very smart man who knows how to garner support from a large swath of Protestant America. Thus far in his presidency any time that he has needed that support he has turned on the pandering machine and gotten it. He is, in every sense of the word a neo-conservative. I, as a very strict conservative loathe that about him. He is me, only as a socialist. Ewww. As a neocon, he wants to spread our way of life. The sect is divided on whether or not this can be done with the sword. Our president has obviously picked his side in that debate. The lesson here is not that he is right, but that he is no monkey, and he has the backings of some very bright people who have more right to opinions in these matters than either of us do.
Now we get to the crux of your issue. Jingoism. My friend, we are at war. If you think the current level of jingoism is bad then you need a reality check. I am one of the most nationalistic people around, and you will only hear me humming “Stars and Stripes Forever” sardonically. What? Do the “Support our troops” ribbons really bother you that much? You talk a lot about your dislike for Jingoism, but you give absolutely no specific examples of the practice.
Of course we don't deserve for the Eternal to bless our nation. No nation deserves it. That is grace my friend. Can we not ask for it? Can we not be wretched and wish to be pure? Most people don't know what they are asking for when they ask for God's blessing, but that doesn't mean that they won't or shouldn't get it. You say we don't need it! Friend, you've just written a rant on exactly why we need it! Your appeal for God's blessing to go to others implies a week god that can only deal with a few things at a time. That isn't my God, and I didn't think that it was yours either. Your last post talked about all of the aid that the government would be giving to your pet charity, and now you turn on it and savage it because it isn't generous enough. That is abominable!
Next you glorify dissidents. Sure, a fair number of them have done a lot for our country. But don't glorify dissidence for its own sake. Dynamiters were dissidents too you know. Many of the ones you glorify today are not being dissidents for noble causes. They are being so because of either guilt at what we were, or a misplaced arrogant idea that they know how things are in the real world. You have implied that your camp is with the former group. After all, you started this post with a brief run through of our atrocities. Never mind the atrocities of our enemies. Never mind the net good we are trying to affect. You have assumed both malice and ignorance on the part of government. You have backed up your claims with absolutely no proof. Maybe it is time that you rethought what was said here.
Think about this pragmatically. Contrary to your opinion, our current administration has sacrificed a lot for this war. They have sacrificed what tends to be the only thing politicians really want. Power. They'll have none or little to none after the next election. The Republicans in control now have thrown away their majority to support this war. Friend, for a politician to do such a thing is almost unthinkable. Do you believe that they would have done it if they did not think it completely necessary?
One final note about the feasibility of a democracy in Iraq. I know that you are tired of hearing it, but that is what was said about Japan. It seems that the one part of American Hubris that has escaped the political right has found a home in the political left. Israel is a democracy, and they are in the middle east. So if geography has anything to do with it, then the issue is moot. You, of course, are implying that Arabs might not be able to pull it off. That just brings me back to hubris.
So you are tired of Jingoism. Am I too jingoistic for you here? Have I thought about these matters too little for you? It seems to me that you have completely underestimated your adversaries. Let me know what you think. |
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