Freedom includes the freedom to be a pacifist.
It also includes the freedom to be an avenger, if sanctioned by the duly elected representatives of this nation.
Then, as now, the United States has been threatened and attacked. For the FIRST TIME IN 130 some odd years (minus a few Japanese balloon bombs), an enemy has been able to directly attack the US mainland, in this case using our own civilian aircraft.
Now I don't know about you, but I really don't want to have to live in this kind of fear for the rest of my life. I don't want to have go to sleep, as I did the night of the Pentagon attack (a few miles away), wondering if overnight a biological or chemical agent was released insider the DC beltway.
This isn't over Maurice.. That was just the opening shot... and more people WILL die, and possibly in even larger quantities, if we don't identify and defeat these people who are willing to kill innocents, in their suicide attacks.
I love peace just like the next guy... and most people who have served in the military have a special "interest" in seeing the nation remain at peace, because they are the ones ask to sacrifice their lives to protect it. And I can appreciate those who have convictions about not taking a human life. They can be examples for how, someday, we hope every human being will be.
But I also know that being a pacifist isn't going to stop someone from plunging aircraft into my civilian buildings, nor will it stop them from using biological, and/or nuclear weapons against us in an act of mass terrorism.
So people like you Uncle should have just kept their pacifist thoughts to themselves, and assisted those who went off to protect his ability to have a dissenting opinion. He had a right to think them, but trying to voice them during a time of crisis, after the nation had been attacked amounted to sedition towards those in the majority who had to do the fighting and dying.
There's something to be said for an education Maurice. But there's also something known as being educated beyond your intelligence.
Common sense, and a sense of principle, can be found in the most uneducated of people, but be utterly devoid of existences in the most educated scholar.
And there's also something to be said for talking when discussion is warranted, and reacting appropriately AND DECISIVELY, when action was taken against you and your people.
There exists an entire nation of Americans who are angry that we've been attacked and 6,000 innocents are dead at the hands of some suicide bombers.
And for folks, similar to your uncle after Pearl Harbor, to claim we're NOT justified in feeling that anger and demanding action, are just truly in a different reality of your academic making.
An education is supposed to help you understand how the world works and how to operate within it (human interaction and psychology). You can hardly claim to have been educated if you insist on spewing a view of reality that bears no resemblance to the world you're living in, or the motivations of the people who surround you.
Hawk |
