Adam "The Bus" Mitz raises an interesting point on my last post on John Kerry. You can read his entire response in the comments section, but I think his objection goes something like this: "Is military service a prerequisite to be considered a patriot or are the opinions of those that serve in the military somehow given more weight than the opinions of those who don't?" In a nutshell, he is taking issue with my comparison between Kerry's service and Delay's non-service. (Mitz-let me know if I've completely mangled your message here so I can fix it.)
The answer to the Military Service(M.S.) = patriot question is a resounding hells no. For two reasons.
1) Not only are many citizens proscribed from M.S., but a majority of U.S. citizens are ineligible. Consider the following categories: women (who can serve but who are allowed to serve under very narrow conditions), the disabled, homosexuals, conscientious objectors, and simply those who don't meet the fairly stringent qualifications that the military requires. Are the voices of these people somehow less important than those with M.S. on their resumes? No they're not.
2) A Patriot, as Paul Krugman mentions in the column I cite, is one who is willing to make personal sacrifices in order to achieve a higher good. This can be done through means other than military service, even if it's only simple things like oil conservation, charitable donations, etc. John Kerry has passed this test, and the medals he has received are testament to his extreme display of personal sacrifice. Tom Delay has not passed this test. Though he was eligible for the draft, he did not serve. Now you might say, "Well, neither have you Tolles." True, of course. But 2003 is different from 1968. Back then, men were being conscripted and if you actively avoided the draft, through legal or illegal methods, that means that some other schmuck who was less connected, less clever, or simply less lucky took your spot. To me, this is the very definition of the abdication of sacrifice. Now maybe Delay had a legitimate reason for not serving, or maybe he didn't. My point was that insinuations that Kerry's criticisms of Bush are unpatriotic, are beyond outrageous since Kerry has clearly displayed extreme personal sacrifice in the past. It is questionable, to say the least, whether the same can be said of Delay and Racicot. In any event, they are the ones that crossed a line with their attacks, not Kerry.
And yes, if for some bizarre reason, I were conscripted to go fight in Iraq right now, I wouldn't hesitate to go. This holds even though I strongly oppose the war. I am not a conscientious objector, (since in order to be one, one has to renounce violence in all its forms, not just renounce violence selectively. There are several cases I can sight where I think violence is justified.) so therefore, if I refuse to go or flee to Canada or something, I am being unpatriotic by forcing someone else to take up my responsibility. And since I am a citizen who enjoys the liberties guarenteed me by the Constitution, the govt. has a right to conscipt me, whether or not I agree with its cause. Oh, and in terms of the civil disobedience argument, by the time a draft comes, civil disobedience is too late; the government will get the number of people it wants, whether you're included or someone else is. In orer to be effective, civil disobedience needs to make its impact before the draft begins.
All in all, I think Mitz's criticism is a fair one based on what I posted last night. I should have been more clear and less flippant with my remarks on Delay. Although I think Mitz and I can agree that Tom Delay is "a piece of shit." That's a real political science term....seriously. So anyway, Mitz 1, Tolles 0 on that particular post. Other criticisms are always appreciated.
Posted by mike at April 8, 2003 07:23 PMLet me be the first to agree with your agreement with me.
I'd like to add that although I don't know much about Kerry I certianly want to see a Democrat win in 2004 and he seems like the guy to do it. So in general, I like the guy, but his holier-than-thou attitude towards DeLay was kind of off-putting.
Your argument about the draft is something I hadn't considered. But do we know that DeLay actively avoided it ("dodged" as it were) or simply wasn't drafted? My point is that we (or at least I) don't know everything about DeLay's history with the service so we shouldn't call him unpatriotic.
Anyway, I wanted to underscore that my last comment wasn't really meant to critisize Mike's "flippant-ness" but more to bring up the issue of derriding people for their lack of military service. Kerry, as a Democratic front-runner, should fiercely debate DeLay on the issue but not on DeLay's lack of patriotism. This is just the standard political mud-slinging that we don't need any more of.
PS: This thing needs spelcheck, I kan't rite witout it
Posted by: Adam on April 8, 2003 08:01 PMAgreed. The whole "you're not patriotic, no you're not," argument should be off the table. However, this is not the first time Delay has done this. I suspect he'll do it again. If and when he does, I think Kerry and the Dems should hit back, real fucking hard, including asking the question, "If you're so goddamn patriotic, where were you during Vietnam?" Delay may have a legit answer, but I suspect the issue may make him squirm. Bottom line: I don't want to have this dirty kind of debate, but if Delay keeps it up, Kerry should break his knee caps with the war-service card. Dirty? Perhaps. It may be necessary though to sling some shit in the other direction if it's constantly being thrown Kerry's way.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Posted by: mike on April 8, 2003 09:06 PMSo yea, I had tried to post the following a couple days ago, but failed and went back to sniffing glue. Anyways here it goes:
1) The BBC reporting on a friendly fire attack that included a BBC reporter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2921807.stm
2) Then there's a cute article about how Pentagon public affairs officers are nice enough to accompany reporters and make sure that the news is reported properly.
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=175623&site=3
3) A story about a marine who conscientiously objected to the war in Iraq, of course not many other sources are covering these sorts of "puff pieces."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/02/MN263095.DTL
4) Most importantly an article about how George W. Bush got into Yale (undergrad) and Harvard (M.B.A) because he was born a poor black child.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/story/0,9171,1101030127-409553,00.html
I agree military service isn't required for patriotism. But I don't think Kerry was saying that. I think he was merely saying that for him, America stands for the right to speak out (freedom of speech). Because he fought for America, he fought for this right. Yet he is being criticized by Delay for being unpatriotic. He feels that he should not be criticized for speaking out because by fighting for America, he fought to protect every American's right to speak out. Maybe it's just me but I didn't take that as an insinuation that fighting for the US is the ultimate quantifier of one's patriotism.
Telling people that you can't speak out against leadership is fundamentally un American. It tries to take away one of our supposedly most precious freedoms. Kerry did not incite violence or threaten anyone with his remarks so he is perfectly within his rights as an American to say what he said.