I am a huge fan of peace. Destruction, oppression of peoples, killing, people getting hurt or going hungry are usually part of war. I don’t want any of those things to happen to me, and I don’t want any of those things to happen to ANYBODY.
However:
Those sorts of things happen outside of war, too. And war can be necessary.
Not everyone agrees with me. I have been friends with Mennonites who believed that it was never ever right to take another human being’s life.
“That’s is God’s right alone,” they said.
“But what if a criminal were holding a gun to your wife’s head, and you could step in and kill him before he killed her?”
“I would have to let God take care of that. It’s wrong to take a life.”
I’ve lived with Quakers who had similar beliefs. I think that is a beautiful thing. I have tremendous respect for their determination to live by their values. I’m sure the world is a better place because they are in it.
I myself would blast the living crap out of anyone that threatened my loved ones. I would be so angry that someone was trying to hurt them.
This is so much of what I hear from peace protestors, too.
ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY
whoa.
Back it up, people. What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?
I like peace. I WANT to be on your side. My heart says, Don’t hurt people!
But the wiser grown-up part of me also knows that it takes hard measures to set things right after they have gone wrong.
And something has gone wrong. Saddam did stuff he shouldn’t do.
So did America.
So did the U.N.
And what do we do now? We can’t go back in time and make a better choice. We are now, we are here, living with the consequences of everything that went before.
What type of consequences do we want to live with in the future? The consequences of war? Or the consequences of not-war?
I say not-war, because I am not sure that the state of things in Iraq were what I could call peace.
Or the state of things in America.
I am not sure about it. I don’t know. I wish I understood. I wish that I had been reading things all along and learning about the situation before it had come to this.
Now, it’s come to this. And what am I to think? War is not a good thing. What can we do to not have war?
How can I know what is the most important?
I can’t devote my whole day to studying it out. Most people in America cannot do this.
BUT!
We have thought of that. This smart for-the-people-by-the-people place I get to live in, we came up with freedom of speech, and then later came up with University systems. We, taxpayers, pay to have people sit around and study important things out so they can get back to us and tell us.
Sometimes, it is in the form of a classroom, this telling us. But when something is so broadly important, I think that these people that I pay to study things should get the information out to more people.
I’m not saying tell me what to think, but laying out the options might be nice.
I feel very let down by the people who are supposed to be our intellectuals.
I think they are not doing their jobs.
Tenure was set up to give professors the security to be daring in their thoughts, to reach farther than others might with safety. I think its a good idea.
But all those people are not putting it out there.
Give me a break! If I can get 4 spams of Michael Moore’s stuff, why can’t someone whose opinion is vastly more informed give me an email that makes some logical sense?
This was first made clear to me with the “Not is our Name” petition that went around the ‘net after September 11.
The statement is one of great weight. I want to resist the bad things they talk about.
But I was not given one shred of evidence of the things they accused the government of doing.
If it is happening, why don’t they point to it?
We are only told to “resist.”
Oh, wait. We are also told to post little globes everywhere.
I feel betrayed. Many of the people who signed that list are people I admire.
Why haven’t they given us a better argument?
Truth shouldn’t be difficult to prove. The fact that no evidence is given makes me wonder if it’s true.