Last night I finally got to see The Patriot. Boy, that was a good movie, at least I thought so. I am one of those people who get all teary-eyed looking at the American flag, and the flag served well, symbolically, in the movie. I love the red, white, and blue, I get thrilled when I see the sun shining through the flag making the red and white stripes glow and the stars shine. I love that flag.
At the same time, I believe people have a right to burn the flag to make a point. That's what being an American is all about, the right to free speech and symbolic action, to say things that are unpopular and do things that are unpopular, because of your beliefs.
I loved Reagan because he loved America as much as I do and he wasn't ashamed to say it. I don't believe any other president during my lifetime loved America, the concept of America, not just a place but a political ideal, as much as he did.
Unfortunately, he wasn't tolerant of people who disagreed with him. I suspect that the type of man who becomes President usually is not. But that's why we also have legislatures and courts.
I disagree that free inquiry and strong values are polar opposites. To me, the right to free inquiry IS a strong value. It is the sine qua non to democracy, to a free country, to human freedom.
VietNam wasn't just dropping napalm on indigenous people but that did happen. VietNam was the first war where the national press published images that let us see the horrors that our soldiers were experiencing, that our soldiers were causing. And VietNam was fought stupidly, it wasn't fought to win. We can argue about whether or not it COULD have been won, but the truth is that we didn't really try. We should have invaded North VietNam and forced surrender that way. But our goal wasn't victory, it was containment, and that didn't work, couldn't work, and it was well known. It was also well known that our government was lying to us, which doesn't go down well in a democracy.
Especially when the soldiers are being drafted. What human being willingly goes into a fight that he knows he can't win? Only when he is protecting his own, and that wasn't what we were doing there. We didn't even like the South VietNamese government, we didn't trust them, it was well known that it was corrupt, and we didn't know much or care much about the VietNamese people.
To someone like Reagan, and there were many, the only frame of reference they had was World War II. You recognized that, I am just agreeing with you. But I disagree that this was a rich man's war. I heard a lot of conspiracy theories about why we were in VietNam, including oil, rice, and heroin, but none of them panned out over time. We were there because we were there and it was politically unthinkable for America to be defeated in a military engagement.
Maybe if Reagan had been president during the VietNam war it would have turned out differently. But we had Lyndon Johnson, a lying, callous, incompetent, malevolent son of a bitch. I hate Johnson the way that liberals hate Reagan.
No, I never burned the flag, but I did participate in every anti-war protest I could, and do everything I could to keep people from being drafted. It was a stupid, dirty, immoral war. We should not engage in war without a clear goal which is important to our national interests, and we should never commit American soldiers to a war that we don't intend to win. |
