~Americans love to tout their freedom of speech. But I wonder what the founding fathers who designated that right for us would think if they could see how it’s being used today.
~They had the best intentions, of course. They wanted the American people to be able to speak their opinions without fear of retribution from the government. I can’t imagine living in a country where I had to constantly guard my speech for fear that some casual exaggeration or sarcastic comment would be reported as treason. Of course, now some want certain speech to be considered a hate crime, so maybe we’re not so far away.
~But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what I’m trying to say — the concept of freedom of speech is considered central to our society, but is it really a license to ignore all boundaries of decency and respect?
~I just can’t imagine that the founding fathers would smile benevolently on a Facebook group named “F*** the Troops,” which by the power vested in the First Amendment calls the members of our military war criminals and encourages the American people to use their freedom of speech to rant against the men and women fighting to protect this nation and innocent people around the world.
~Apparently, they fail to grasp the irony of their own position. Without the troops, past and present, who have fought and died to defend this country and contain those who threaten it, these hate-spouting folks would be forced to keep their opinions to themselves. They only have the privilege of criticizing our armed forces because that privilege has been won and defended for them by those forces. They don’t like to think about the fact that their freedom of speech is bathed in the blood of thousands of brave Americans.
~It would have been great if we could have resolved the issues in Iraq by talking it through and coming to a reasonable compromise that was acceptable to both sides. But we’re dealing with enemies that don’t want to talk and don’t want to compromise. They want to kill us. All of us. Even the nice people who don’t like war and would rather focus on more important things like diversity in education and global warming.
~Now look, I don’t think our military should be world police. Sure, I wish we could go around the world and fix everything. See that the good guys are freed and the bad guys are punished. Make life better for the weak and fairer for the poor. But we can’t. And it’s not our job. The world has a whole lot of evil in it, and all our efforts can never make the evil go away.
~And I hate the fact that our military is being sent into mortal danger to try to stabilize a nation full of people who are too busy killing our soldiers and each other to assume responsibility for themselves and their government.
~But do the liberals honestly believe that never going to war is an option? Would they say that Hitler should have been left to his own devices? I suppose as long as he wasn’t on American soil, we shouldn’t have cared how many Jews he annihilated, right?
~I can almost hear it — “German U-boats landing on the east coast of the United States? That’s just a lie told by the right to justify military action. It’s wrong to invade a sovereign nation! We should just send him a fruit basket and part of Czechoslovakia and he’s bound to leave us alone. You’ll see.”
~Give it a hundred years. Heck, fifty. If our culture keeps going the direction it is now, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a public school history teacher say “Planes used as missiles to attack New York City and the Pentagon? Oh, really, now. Where did you get a crazy story like that? The truth is, our bad, bad president attacked this jolly old bearded man named Saddam for no reason at all. He killed Saddam’s little boys, and then he paid some people to dress up like Iraqis and murder Saddam for him. And wait till I tell you how he forced this poor man named Osama to live in a cave for years and years…”
~Come on, it’s not that far-fetched. We rewrite history all the time to suit our purposes. But I’m digressing again. My point is still that the liberals who love to hate our military wouldn’t have the privilege of saying so if that military had sat back, woven daisy chains, and let Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin carve up this country into their own “spheres of influence.”
~Actually, the liberals probably wouldn’t hate the military so much at that point. They would be praying every night that some great army would march in and free them. They’d be only too happy to accept the intervention. But give it a week or two, and they’d be right back to taking all that precious freedom for granted and offering their expert criticisms on how the world is being run.
~There’s a PBS program about the US Marines that I caught part of yesterday. One man said something along the lines of how most Americans would rather ignore what the Marines do. They would rather believe that the world is full of sunshine and puppy dogs and never know that people have to die in order for them to maintain their way of life. He said “A liberal society is still a society that needs defending.” Unfortunately, it’s not a society that will ever acknowledge the debt it owes to its defenders.
~So I want our troops to know that for all the noisy, ungrateful wretches who love to criticize you, there are a whole lot more of us who admire, respect, and thank you for all that you and your families sacrifice for our sakes. Because of you, we don’t have to face the bad guys. A few of us even like to pretend the bad guys don’t exist. But most of us know better, and we’re eternally grateful to you.
~So Happy Independence Day, especially to the men and women who fight to keep us free. Godspeed to all our troops. We’re praying for a safe and quick homecoming for you all.