The fallacy of disagreeing with your Commander-and-Chief
If you’re not aware of Michael Moore’s (of Bowling for Columbine fame) new Bush-bashing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (official site with trailer), then you’re obviously out of touch of American society and you need to pick up a newspaper or something. Anyways, Michael Moore, a registered Independent, but a leftist liberal advocate, gives his overt opinion of what he thinks about Bush and his administration. It’s not too kind either. Basically it’s liberal propaganda, but I guess their entitled to their propaganda techniques as much as conservatives are entitled to theirs. Let’s face it, all sides use some form of propaganda. Anyways, go see the movie if you’re so inclined. The only presuppositions I’ve just made (I haven’t seen the movie yet) are from reviews of it that I’ve read on the internet. But this random thought isn’t about Michael Moore or his movie. It’s about how people can’t have their cake and eat it to.
The reason I bring up Fahrenheit 9/11 is because apparently there’s a scene in it involving a mother from a rural town in Michigan or something who has a boy that has gone off to Iraq for the war. When we first meet her in the move, she’s all U.S.A. and “support the troops” and everything. When her boy comes back in a body bag, she becomes anti-Bush and learns of her son’s disgruntled attitude as to why he’s fighting in Iraq in the first place. I use this example to lump a bunch of people who have this similar attitude; the one as to why the heck Bush and Co. is letting hundreds of thousands of our American boys die and fight a war have of America has no idea why we’re fighting.
I have a problem with that mentality on a number of levels. And I’ll try to explain why in the least demeaning way.
1) For members of the armed forces:
-No draft is in effect and hasn’t been effect for more than 30 years. Ergo you signed up voluntarily. And when one signs up voluntarily for the United States Armed Forces, you are now property of the United States and what they tell you to do, you do, even if you don’t agree on a “world view” level. You soldiers knew full well what you were in for when you signed on the dotted line, no one forced you. So when you’re called to go to battle, even if you don’t agree with it, you can either whine and wuss out, or suck it up and do what you volunteered and are getting paid to do.
-Do you think the soldiers in the boats approaching Normandy on D-Day, and worse a hailstorm of German lead, wanted to be there? HELL NO!!! And the chances of getting killed in WWII were insanely higher than getting killed in the conflict in Iraq. But they knew one that they were fighting to conquer evil, two, to liberate from a dictator an oppressed continent, and three, they were commanded to do it. You’ll notice, if you’re honest with yourselves, those are the very same reasons you went to Iraq in the first place. So what’s with all the smokescreen “why are we here?” jive?
-Now you’re saying, Keith, what the hell do you know about the war in Iraq? You’re sitting your lazy @$$ comfortably in your sheltered suburbia and your cush deskjob. I don’t need your sh*t! I could spend time refuting that in a number of ways, but I’ll just say that consciously changing a touchy subject exhibits one’s inability to make a defense for their case and any insinuation against them. A topic-changer such as that shows you have no response based in courage, integrity, dignity, and logic; the very principles our Armed Forces stand by. I rest my case.
-If you don’t believe what you’re fighting for is right then just quit. Sure you might get dishonorably discharged, but at least you’ll have stuck to your ethical principles and standards, right? It’s not like this is Stalin’s army, they won’t kill you for quitting. Are you just blowing hot air, or are you gonna walk the talk or just complain the talk?
2) For civilian Americans:
-Ok, you don’t agree with the war in Iraq. That’s fine, and you’re entitled to your view. I pose this simple question though. What is your solution to the conflict? Take out all troops? Ok, that was a no-brainer. Then what? Huh? You’re gonna have to speak up a little. What was that? You don’t know what after that? You mean you don’t know what you’d do with the assured Iraqi civil war if all U.S. troops just all the sudden pulled out? You mean you don’t know what you’d do after the Middle East conflict was turned up a notch or two?.......I rest my case.
3) For smokescreen pacifists
-My point above should be fairly appropriate in your case. But you do bring up some ethical questions that require a little more thought. If I was a German during WWII and Hitler told me to kill Jews for just being Jews I hopefully would’ve refused despite the fear of punishment. Sure, they might have killed me, but at least I would’ve done down deep in my heart what was right. This correlation is moot though because the German army drafted most of their soldiers. If you don’t agree with President Bush and his itinerary, don’t join his army! Nobody is forcing you to fight for him.
I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy. I just am tired of all these people complain about Bush, Iraq, etc. and not providing one darn alternative solution of logical merit! They just complain and complain and refuse to admit there’s evil in this world that needs to be contained by force and only force. I hate that. They may say their alternative solution is to cast a vote for John Kerry this November. Well by all means exercise that right. I just hope you know what you’re doing. Just remember that freedom comes at a price, a dear price. Sacrifice and death exist hand and hand with freedom. There are no two ways about it.