Today you offer four fine points of rebuttal to that idiot woman who wants us to "talk only" to Iran, because the use of force is never justified. Would you consider running this unpublished piece of mine as an added rebuttal? Bob
Dear Neighbor:
Every time I pass your house, I am tempted to stop and try to talk to you about your lawn sign that proclaims: "War is NOT the answer." But perhaps an anonymous rebuttal will suffice, affording you an opportunity for reflection without confrontation.
What exactly do you mean? Is war NEVER the answer? Should your sign read, instead, "War should never be our first option"? Longer, certainly, but more exact, unless you are a pacifist who believes that no war is ever justified, even a war of self-defense. Is that your position?
If not, then your lawn sign is misleading, a lazy shorthand for what you really intend to say. Perhaps it fills you with a sense of moral self-righteousness, but to me it signifies someone who is a sloganeer held prisoner by platitudes.
If you truly believe that war is NOT the answer, then explain to me (or even just to yourself, your spouse or your children) how, in the absence of the Civil War, the Negroes would have been freed from slavery. Do you imagine the Confederate States would have released them from perpetual bondage? In the absence of war—Lincoln's decision to fight—isn't it more likely that the South would have invaded and conquered Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and other sun-drenched territories where King Cotton could have been extended, as the Confederate states faced soil depletion from continuous cultivation of cotton? Should President Lincoln be condemned for his action?
In the absence of war—Roosevelt's decision to fight—Hitler would have achieved his goal of killing the Jews of Europe and, facing no military opposition, killing all the remaining Jews worldwide, as well as gypsies, homosexuals and other "inferior" peoples. If you survived at all, you would be speaking German today—if America had not used military force to resist Hitler's insatiable appetite for conquest. Should Roosevelt be censured for challenging isolationism and pacifism, and for realizing that sometimes war may be the ONLY answer?
If you oppose war everywhere and at all times, do you propose to restore the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, so they can continue to subjugate women, destroy works of art, ban music, and perpetuate a reign of terror?
If war is not the answer, do we owe an apology to Saddam Hussein for killing his murderous sons and heirs, and for ousting him? Should America not have led the 1991 coalition that forced him to withdraw from Kuwait? If going to war against Saddam Hussein was wrong in 1991 or 2003 because war is NOT the answer, then it is a reversible error. Should we restore him to power so he can annihilate the Marsh Arabs, continue his oppression of the Kurds and prolong his tyranny over the Shi'ite majority? And should we compensate him for his mental anguish? How much would you be willing to pay into such a fund?
If I have managed to cause you second thoughts about your lawn sign, would it be too much to ask that you remove that eyesore today?
BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I travel by car quite a lot for work. This neighbor of yours, with the lawn signage, is no different from folks who put bumper stickers with, what they seem to think are, clever political messages on their cars.
I saw a new one yesterday, on several cars:
"When Clinton Lied, No One Died"
One of these even had an exclamation point at the end!!! You know, in case the reader didn't quite get the seriousness of the message already.
Certainly some issues are simple enough to be summarized in a sentence or two, but I have to laugh at people who feel comfortable expressing their views on a complex issue via a single sentence.
And, can't you just seem them standing there, all smug like, with their arms folded in that "Ah-Ha!" pose? I can, and it makes me laugh.