I've mentioned before that I'm unhappy with our current political landscape, and that I'm too lazy to blog on it, which makes me like 89% of the rest of America.
However, last night I was chatting on GoogleTalk with my pal OC Girl, and we ended up having a political discussion (which is not entirely typical of either of us, at least when we're chatting with eachother).
What follows is the slightly cleaned-up version of our chat, along with some occasional interjections to round out my thoughts. Of course, none of this is groundbreaking, but at least I'm managing to put my finger on what I've been musing on of late.
As a note, I included the dialogue that led to the conversation we had (some changes made to protect the guilty) so you could see how randomly we got into our, and how texting late at night on a Crackberry can be a tenuous proposition at best...
Participants:
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Rusty,OC Girl...
Messages:
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Rusty: Go to bed
OC Girl...: you go to bed
Rusty: On my way to bed now.
Rusty: You chatting up your boyfriend or something?
OC Girl...: no, he's sleeping... its late there. I changed my major today
Rusty: To what?
OC Girl...: International Studies, focus on Africa. I will be done sooner. And I have a passion for that, I really don’t like business
Rusty: WTF? OC Girl...: I know, kinda random
Rusty: Africa sucks
OC Girl...: shut up
Rusty: Hot there. And tsetse flies
OC Girl...: ha-ha
OC Girl...: America sucks. George Bush [ed. note: link added for your perusal]; Republicans; Bible belt
Rusty: I'm a Republican, beeatch
OC Girl...: I am too (at least technically). Give me tsetse flies any day over a Bible thumper
Rusty: Least we don't get sleeping sickness from our bug bites.
OC Girl...: true, true. hey...
Rusty: ?
OC Girl...: did you know Fox? Or the Fox brothers
Rusty: Fox?
OC Girl...: they were just younger than me
Rusty: Nope.
OC Girl...: Anyway Fox, whom I loved like a little bro, died two days ago
Rusty: Sad. Was it from sleeping sickness?
OC Girl...: I guess kinda. OD'd on Oxycontin. Crazy kids.
Rusty: How old?
OC Girl...: 26? 27? It sucks. I will see many people from town I have tried to avoid on Saturday at his funeral.
Rusty: Like who?
OC Girl...: I don’t think many people you know; people we used to work with.
Rusty: Ahh. Hey, was nice getting to see u the other night with my wife and daughter.
OC Girl...: I loved it! I am in love with your little girl.
Rusty: She doesn't swing that way.
OC Girl...: shut up
Rusty: Hey, just noticed AG's new Myspace link on your page today.
OC Girl...: yeah she just got one not too long ago
Rusty: Horrible picture of her on her page.
OC Girl...: yeah I know. she looks like shit a lot lately. I think she’s smoking WAY too much weed.
Rusty: Oh. Ganja got her down?
OC Girl...: for real, yo. and she doesn’t take care of herself well
Rusty: Too bad
OC Girl...: I told her to stop smoking, because she was sick all the fucking time
Rusty: She could be so much more than she is if she would just apply herself
OC Girl...: In every aspect of her life.... but couldn’t we all.....
Rusty: I hate people with a shitload of potential who just blow it all
OC Girl...: [provides this link; since I was on the Crackberry I didn't feel like wasting the time trying to view it]
Rusty: Will look later. What is it?
OC Girl...: title: "Most Americans Plan to Vote for Democrats"
Rusty: I may very likely
OC Girl...: you should
Rusty: Same as voting Republican anymore
OC Girl...: lesser of the two evils....
Rusty: Same damn thing
OC Girl...: I know, I just don’t want that effing President to have any additional support in Congress for his stupidity
Rusty: I keep wanting to blog about my political disillusionment, but its too hard.
OC Girl...: yeah... I just want to rant... and have someone kill off Pat Robertson
Rusty: And I'd end up just repeating what numerous people have already said.
OC Girl...: exactly
Rusty: What I really want to do is dissect the notion of patriotism.
OC Girl...: I cant believe that moron as been in office two terms. makes me sick to my stomach. you should
Rusty: I think patriotism is great. I just don't think anyone knows what it actually is. I have to admit I voted for him
OC Girl...: I didn’t either time
Rusty: Generally upset at myself about it. Sad truth, though, is I really don't know that we'd have been much better off with Kerry. A lot of our current issues are contextual
OC Girl...: I agree
Rusty: Ultimately alot of the current issues are a matter of how you deal with a faction of humanity that won't tolerate another. I don't think were taking the right approach. But I don't know that I know what the right approach is. Seems to me that Bush certainly doesn’t. But Kerry never seemed to either.
OC Girl...: but we are being so incredibly narrow-minded and unwilling to deal, just imposing our belief system on everyone else, that it is going to create WWIII. And this Israel thing is a joke, and President Bush practically supporting it?
Rusty: Israel is certainly part of the problem
OC Girl...: Israel is a huge problem. I am embarrassed and ashamed f the country I am from.
Rusty: Ah, don't go too far with that...I'm ashamed of our leadership.
OC Girl...: so am I. they re like a child that misbehaves and we think its cute, when all it is doing is hurting so many around them
Rusty: I'm ashamed of the sheeple who follow whoever is leading them
OC Girl...: Christians? ;-)
Rusty: Eff u :) But I love our country
OC Girl...: yes I agree
Rusty: I appreciate that most citizens of the world seem to be able to differentiate between America's policies and America's people.
OC Girl...: I think (on principle) this country is the best.... but like religion, put it in other men's hands to interpret and put into action and everything gets fucked up. I do think enough people do differentiate.
Rusty: Our whole government is broken. No longer any representation of normal people
OC Girl...: you are correct
Rusty: Its like we're the British colonies again
OC Girl...: exactly!
Rusty: Taxation without representation
OC Girl...: exactly... warfare without...uh....welfare(?) we need a revolution
Anyway, a random conversation that hit some of the issues I've been kicking around in my mind.
Patriotism is one. I'm sick of all of the discussion of patriotism as defined by the right. And by the left. At Dictionary.com, "patriotism" is defined as "love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it."
Depending on who you listen to on the radio, you get contrasting definitions of what patriotism is. On FoxNewsTalk, patriotism is supporting our president in all he does, or patriotism is supporting an ongoing war effort that was embarked upon in a calculated, deceptive fashion, or patriotism is asserting our American supremacy over everyone else and believing that our might makes right and our leadership is steering a sane and morally correct course (though it may not look like it now, we'll let history be the judge), and above all patriotism is not objecting as you might give our enemies aid and comfort. On AirAmerica, patriotism is attacking the government mercilessly, regardless of whether what they are doing is actually working, based on old and repeated arguments, or patriotism is taking a cynical and negative approach to everything about our country and not really offering any viable alternatives.
Patriotism is loving your country, though. Loving your country means expressing concern where it's veering off course, cheering where things are going well, and doing what you can to make it a better place. All this means that patriotism requires objectivity, an open mind, a willingness to have a dialogue, and also an understanding that what makes our country great is that we can disagree and, in the end, let democracy determine the answer.
Personally, I'm extremely disappointed in President Bush. I don't envy him his position; as I said in my chat with OC Girl, a lot of Bush's issues, and the country's issues, are a result of our world environment. There's no question that Bush is responsible for some of that environment; his policies have isolated us even as we've become more active on the world stage. However, Al Qaeda was a problem with Clinton; terrorism has been a developing issue for decades; Iraq/Iran was always going to be a quagmire of some sort; Israel's existence, and our country's support of it, has always created a tenuous position in the middle east; the proliferation of nuclear arms among smaller countries was never something we could realistically prevent from eventually happening . . . the list of contextual issues that define our times (even as we help define the issues) goes on and on and on.
So patriotism requires us to take a fair and sober look at what our country is. Our country is a broken federal republic. The idea of our country is that we have leaders who serve as representatives of their constituents. The reality of our country is that we have leaders who serve themselves and do whatever will get them sufficient campaign contributions to get re-elected, constituents-be-damned.
Our country is at war with terrorism. If this was a war we could win, that would be great. It seems, upon reflection, that although we were all excited about kicking terrorism's ass, the reason for so broadly defining the war (instead of making it a war against Al Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah and whomever else is an actual terrorist entity) was to impose regime-change in other countries. Let me be clear here; Iraq and the world are better off without Saddam Hussein. Afghanistan is better off without the Taliban. A democratic regime in these countries is, in my mind, favorable to what they had when the war began. But I have serious doubts about the legitimacy of our military actions in these countries, where the clear direction was to wipe out regimes and not actual terrorists.
It's a big issue, to be sure. I don't know what the right answer is. Just don't really think we've found it yet.
The shouting match from the right begins once you start questioning the legitimacy of the war we're in. "YOU DON'T SUPPORT OUR TROOPS? WHAT KIND OF AMERICAN ARE YOU? WOULD YOU RATHER WE RETURNED TO THE IRAQ OF THE YEAR 2000?"
The shouting match is the first sign of a weak mind. If you can't reason, yell. Drown out the other voices. Might makes right. This is the John Gibson/FoxNews/Bill O'Reilley/Lars Larson approach to political debate. Every time I listen to this sort of dialogue, where it ends up being a monologue by the host with repeatedly-ignored entreaties by the guest to simply finish their sentence, I want to puke.
Any American worth their salt supports our armed forces. Our country's very existence was bought with the blood of those who laid down life for country, for liberty, and for their fellow Americans. At some point, though, one has to agree that supporting our troops means demanding that they be brought back from the morasse they've been placed in.
And, at the same time, one has to be careful to honor the troops that are lost and respect their deaths enough to make sure they weren't killed in vain. I no longer believe that we really made all the efforts we should have to stay out of Iraq (for instance, look at our current ongoing diplomacy with North Korea, which certainly is acting more aggressively than Iraq but is benefitting for our mis-steps in going to war with Iraq in a premature fashion). It is clear that, even as we feigned diplomacy, our plans were to go into Iraq come Hell or high water, and the diplomacy was simply a sham to placate our populace prior to committing blood and treasure to the goals of the neo-cons.
Iraq now suffers a vaccuum of power. To withdraw now would be irresponsible given the situation we've created. However, we're not acting nearly aggressively enough to push Iraq into self-government or to train up Iraqis to defend themselves. This, of course, because we like having Iraq as a launching pad for future pre-emptive action. Another gift from the neo-cons.
Whatever.
America is also a land of laws. I was impressed with the recent Supreme Court decision finding that our Guantanamo Bay prisoners have rights under the Geneva Convention. Despite all of the screaming from the radical right, I heard Judge Andrew Napolitano (a FoxNews host with the benefit of an actual education) actually laud the decision, and defend it to the always-annoying Gibson as a clear sign that America was a land committed to liberty, to treating people fairly (no matter who they are), and to upholding the law even when it is to the benefit of those who would destroy us. As I listened to him that day, I thought of the Declaration of Independence. "We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." And I realized that "all men" includes our enemies; patriotism and love of country, especially one as worthy of our love as America, requires embracing the core values and concepts that distinguish us. Equality for all. Justice without malice. Innocent until proven guilty. Napolitano explained the various things the decision meant. All detainees get a trial in a court martial or in a federal court. No military tribunals with secret evidence which the defendant has no right to see. No ability to prosecute based on hearsay and speculation. Fairness.
That is patriotism.
I'm losing my point. It's lost. That's okay. I mostly just needed to spew.
However, this could make a fun back-and-forth, if any of you care to comment. Maybe it would be therapeutic to all of us to flush out our feelings on our country's current direction as it is and as it should be....
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4 comments:
I was searching blogs on google for "might makes right", and yours turned up. There are so many areas in life where people do what they feel like doing, if they have the power, then make up reasons to sell their actions to themselves as well as to others. It seems Iraq was like that. Politics is rarely about doing the right thing, unless "right" means what will get one elected, what will stick to the agenda of a group, what is safer.
My thoughts after 9/11 went from genocide, of Muslims or by Muslims, to pacifism. What would it take for a President of the US to have stood up and said, "We mourn our 3000 dead, but we are 300,000,000. We can afford to forgo vengeance in order to find another way"? Could a President endure the criticism that would follow that?
Which way is patriotic? To root for victory in war or to find a way to a better world, the US included? The actual dialog is not about that, but about "gotcha" and other sorts of oneupsmanship. That doesn't sound like love of country or any other love to me.
Dave:
I'd be lying if I said that I ever considered pacifism in the wake of 9/11. I remember the day well; things at my office crept to a standstill and I spent most of the day watching coverage on the internet and on a co-worker's mini-TV in his office. My feeling then, like so many others', was "let's find out who did this and turn them into a greasemark." And, like so many others, I followed the trail of crumbs laid out by the administration, first from Osama, then to the Taliban, then to Afghanistan, then to Saddam, and ultimately to war.
Upon reconsideration, Osama was and is a legit target. The Taliban genuinely seems, to me, to have been a government that went above-and-beyond in aiding terrorism, allowing training camps and such, and was a fair target.
Saddam clearly made the President's list for primarily personal reasons, and evidence was produced to validate his premise that the Hussein government was going above and beyond to aid terrorism. Like I said before, I'm glad Hussein is gone. But the logic we used with Hussein would ultimately dictate that, if we are going to act consistently, we should be ultimately toppling the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, India, China, Israel, North Korea...ultimately the logic leads to us revolting against ourselves, since we actively produce weapons of mass destruction, sponsor actions that could be considered by those on the receiving end as terrorist in nature, and act with disregard to the world community and nations' subjective judgment of what's "right" from time to time.
Worse, under the Bush regime, our government has actively weakened our Constitutional rights, and though I personally feel that I would give up some of my rights for a limited time for a limited purpose, our government which acts by the people, for the people, is actively governing without regard for the will of its citizenry. Noone's asked me if I mind my phone records being examined; I don't, but in my narrow legal experience, without consent, there needs to be a judicially-issued warrant based on probable cause for the seizure of privately held property to be used as evidence; unlike the Canadians, we don't have a "Queen's Writ" allowing law enforcement (or pseudo-law enforcment, or the spook community) to go willy-nilly through whatever they want to.
Hmm, got off the point a bit. I don't know that I agree with you that the correct response would have been to forego retaliation; I genuinely believe that not retaliating is essentially a reward in that it doesn't provide a negative checkmark to put in the tally during future decision-making as to whether to re-attack us.
I believe that focussed retaliation (striking at Osama and taking him and Al Qaeda out to a noticeable and unmistakeable degree) was the correct response, in that destroying a distinct group tells other groups we aren't to be trifled with, and yet while focussing on our attack we're negating the present phenomena of creating new enemies by way of our over-reaction...
We seem to generally agree on everything else, though. Thanks for your thoughts.
You'de never guess my official political affiliation- I'm over and around the map and passionate about what I believe. Which is, 'who gives a shit about iraq? who cares about some stupid ass country. so they had a dictator- i dont give a shit, 'operation iraqi freedom' my ass. if they wanted freedom they could fight for it themselves, like we did. then we would recoginise the new free govt. like france did for us. by i sure as shit dont want to do other ppls dirty work. if you -really- want freedom and democracy then youlle find a way to get there yourself. see black south africa as example.
thanks for the thoughts, the log of you and friends convo, and the place to babbly a few thoughts of my own.
im a reg. dem btw. heh.
How appropriate to write a political musing on Bastille day.
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