Pursuing Holiness

An interesting post at Threads from Henry’s Web:

Would it be patriotism for me to support the current war just because my president got it started? I think it would, in fact, be precisely the opposite. The war is a bad move in what appears to be a bad ad hoc strategy, and it will result in no good for the country that I love. Given that I believe that, could I possibly be a patriot and a person of integrity if I didn’t say it? I would suggest the opposite, that I would be the worst sort of lying traitor in those circumstances.

Henry is on the opposite side of me on many issues, but he’s a patriot, and I don’t just say that because he served his country in the military, although that’s true too. I agree with him completely that lots of people are against the war for a variety of reasons, and that doesn’t mean they’re not patriots. I suggest this, though: It’s what people do with those feelings/opinions that makes them unpatriotic.

As one example, after the study proved that “intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq,” anybody wishing to be known as a patriot should avoid those news-making public protests and discourage others from attending. Because people in the middle east, including people who want to kill our troops, keep up with this stuff. The fact that this is increasingly a media war cannot be discounted. Does that mean anti-war patriots are required to just passively go along with a policy they believe is harmful? Not at all.

There are lots of ways - and more effective ways, at that - to try to end the war than attending a protest. By all means, those folks should write and call their Congressman and Senator. Vote the people who voted for the war out of office. Support, raise money and get out the vote for anti-war candidates. (Even if they can’t win against an incumbent, organized, effective support for such a candidate will tend to scare the heck out of the incumbent and bend him to the will of the voters. Look at the effect Tom Tancredo had on the GOP Presidential race - he had them all moving right on illegal immigration.) Join together with likeminded people, sign petitions, arrange local debates and speaking engagements to try to bring people over to their point of view. Get those people registered to vote and active in the political process. All those things are well within the bounds of patriotic activity. Encouraging and giving PR victories to those who want to kill American troops is not.

I have no problem with people having the position that the war should be stopped for whatever reason. I think they’re wrong, but I don’t think that position requires that they hate their country. It’s when they behave in ways that are harmful as in anti-war activists who block recruiting stations, threaten/attack recruiters, lie about the troops, engage in thuggery, obstruct military shipments, or provide PR victories that embolden the enemy - that I call them unpatriotic.

Furthermore, while being against this war is not necessarily unpatriotic, I find no justification at all for being anti-military. And while Henry is both pro-military and anti-Iraq war, an awful lot of today’s anti-war sentiment is undeniably both. To say otherwise requires “a willing suspension of disbelief.” So while the right tends to reflexively label antiwar folks as unpatriotic, there is some justification for that due to the anti-war, anti-military overlap.

If you doubt that, you need look no farther than progressive sites like Crooks and Liars or ThinkProgress. The anti-military hate spewed there is enough to turn the stomach. They have criminalized mere political disagreement. Now it is no longer acceptable to live in a pluralistic society where honest disagreement on major policy questions is possible between men and women of good will. To disagree with them is to be a liar, a cheat, a murderer.

But not only did Thomas Jefferson not say that dissent is the highest form of patriotism, he actually said,

“I fear [political difference] is inseparable from the different constitutions of the human mind and that degree of freedom which permits unrestrained expression. Political dissention is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism, but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence, if possible, from social life. The good are rare enough at best. There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines. But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the principles of society, as that political opinions shall, in its intercourse, be as inoffensive as those of philosophy, mechanics, or any other, may be well doubted.” –Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney, 1797. ME 9:389

Henry and I disagree about the war and we’re each working to forward our views. But neither one of us is booing our troops or cheering for the other side. And that makes all the difference.

Photo credit - Adage Media.

written by Laura