Friday , March 29 2024

Veteran’s Day Thoughts

Thank you to all who have served or are serving in the military. I may not agree with where or why the wars are fought but I still think you are brave.

These are photos I took back in the day (about a year ago) when I had time to work as a buddy photographer. Rain had fallen on these flags.


La Shawn Barber and other blogs are collecting Veterans Day links.

I’m linking to some conservative Web sites to let them know that the suggestion that anti-war is anti-troops is basically bogus.

It was hard, though, to hold my tongue at this blog about a stupid fight over whether it’s OK to have a peace display.

I’ll restrict my response to two sentences.

The writer suggests there should be no peace movement during war and says,

So perhaps we should restate our point here. This is the day that we honor the men and women who serve and have served our country.

This is not the day that we celebrate honoring and providing aid and comfort to the enemy that would replace our freedoms, including the freedom of dissent, with sharia law.

Whatever happened to respect, duty, honor, and service to one’s country, most especially, in a time of war?

My response: Whatever happened to respecting the diversity of opinions and the right to free expression? If dissent should be silenced during war, how democratic is that?

Addendum: This response, when posted on my blog, generated this response:

Gee, we appreciate you linking to our post, and we are certainly always willing to accept criticism. But from one set of bloggers to another, you seem to be a bit selective over what you choose to use for bolstering your agenda. We see from your post:

It was hard, though, to hold my tongue at this blog about a stupid fight over whether it’s ok to have a peace display.” and your response – Whatever happened to respecting the diversity of opinions and the right to free expression? If dissent should be silenced during war, how democratic is that?

Well, you managed to leave out, what we said about dissent:

Dissent is good for our nation, and the freedom to dissent is one of our the very special freedoms that makes our country so great. But when at war, a nation and it’s leaders need the support and cooperation of all of it’s citizens, speaking as one voice. We should argue our differences, after, we have defeated the enemy. To do otherwise, provides comfort and leverage to those that would destroy our freedoms, our culture, our society, indeed our entire civilization.
Like it or not, we are at war. If you don’t understand that, or know the difference between dissent, and aiding the enemy by supplying them propaganda, propaganda that ends up costing the lives of our men and women in combat, men like my son, now in Iraq for the fourth time – having volunteered, then all the commentary in the world just isn’t going to help you understand.

As you correctly stated, what kind of democracy would this be if you didn’t have the right to say what you wish. However, it’s okay to disagree, but a little common sense ought to go along with it. We need to think hard about how those guys that direct explosive-laden nitwits to kill and maim folks like you and I that disagree with them, use our words and actions to recruit and motivate others to do the same.

After all, I am a Recon Marine, albeit an older one now, but I’ve left many friends on the battlefields of Vietnam – as has many others, and as my son and many others have in Iraq, so that you and your kind have that right, and for now, aren’t obligated to attend a mosque!

God bless America, and God bless our armed forces.

Semper Fi (yesterday was my Marine Corps birthday)

To which I responded: I left out your comment about dissent because it doesn’t seem to make much sense. You said,

We should argue our differences, after we have defeated the enemy. To do otherwise, provides comfort and leverage to those that would destroy our freedoms, our culture, our society, indeed our entire civilization.

Like it or not, we are at war. If you don’t understand that, or know
the difference between dissent, and aiding the enemy by supplying them
propaganda, propaganda that ends up costing the lives of our men and
women in combat, men like my son, now in Iraq for the fourth time –
having volunteered, then all the commentary in the world just isn’t
going to help you understand.

I understand we are at war. I also understand that if I buy your argument that debate about the war should not take place until after the war is over. I read that as meaning dissent should stop during the war. That leads exactly to the point I made – to suggest that dissent stop during war is to suggest free expression is not truly free – it is time-sensitive.

It sounds to me like you are the one who can’t tell the difference, as you said, between “dissent, and aiding the enemy by supplying them propaganda, propaganda that ends up costing the lives of our men and women in combat, men like my son, now in Iraq for the fourth time – having volunteered, then all the commentary in the world just isn’t going to help you understand.”

To me there is a huge difference between saying, “I support the troops by suggesting the war end and they come home safely” and “Here are the current locations of the troops.”

One is healthy dissent and the second is dangerous propaganda. Suggesting those two things are the same seems pretty close-minded to me.

This exchange reminds me of the straw man argument used against Cindy Sheehan, namely saying she doesn’t speak for all military families – not that she ever said she did – ergo she shouldn’t be listened to. Sure, she’s yesterday’s news but it’s the same propagand crap. See, propaganda is ok for conservatives to use against war critics – but if war critics respond then we’re guilty of helping the enemy.
Ed/Pub:LisaM

About Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education. He has been working in mental health for the last ten years. He lives in Austin. He reads at least 50 books a year and has about 15 author interviews each year and, yes, unlike tv hosts he actually reads each one. He is an in-house media critic, a recovering Tetris addict and a proud uncle. He has written articles on practically all topics from zoos to apples and almost everything in between.

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