I received a letter from a reader of the conservative political persuasion who has kindly and thoughtfully taken the time to outline our political differences. In hopes of continuing our dialogue, I herein reprint his letter, followed by my response.
To E. P. Harmon:
I am amazed at your naiveté and willingness to lay down your arms in face of certain death.
You misinterpret religion in saying it does not advocate defending oneself against one’s enemies. I can’t quote scripture but it seems to me that there was a lot of smiting with swords and ass jaws when it was all said and done. Remember the bit where one guy lays his sword down to get a drink of water and gets whacked? Good lesson.
Based on your logic, if I broke into your house and started raping you, your husband’s proper reaction would be to sit on the couch and pray that I go away. I don’t think he would do that.
We are presently engaged in World War IV—WWIII being the Cold War, which we won, by the way, when Reagan called the communists’ bluff and built up our arsenal, and they couldn’t match the pot.
Whether you want to recognize it or not, we have a world-wide entrenched enemy who wants to turn the entire world back to the 8th century. They are using some 20th century tools to do it and I can appreciate the irony of that. Instead of embracing the freedom that you espouse, they would be happy to have every country on earth have women clad in burkas, not attend school, and be told when and whom to marry.
I think that if we tried to engage them in the 60’s hippie love-fest you seem so eager to try, they would exploit that weakness and set off the very bomb you are afraid of.
Despite your misgivings, security agencies are busy dismantling terrorist groups inside the U.S. every day.
In my opinion, Iraq and the entire world are in better places today with Saddam behind bars and on trial by his countrymen, than they were previously. There are no more rape rooms, no torture chambers, no knocks on the door in the middle of the night. The country is bouncing down the bumpy road to democracy. They have achieved within a year something that took our founding fathers sixteen years to accomplish—a constitution. Their country is not going to look like America, nor do we wish it to; it will be what they want, and what their citizens, for the first time in fifty years, actually get to vote on. Last time I looked, Saddam got 100% of the vote; now a popular candidate gets maybe 40%. That is progress. For the first time ever in that country, women voted. The U.S. armed forces, whom you despise, have restored power, brought power where none existed, brought water, hospitals, rebuilt schools. Their citizens are joining their army and police forces in droves to protect their fellow citizens, even knowing they may get blown up by some thug with a bomb while they’re standing in line at a recruiting station.
There are now newspapers that print what they want with no fear of reprisal, not just papers run by the state. The most popular things to own are a cell phone, a PC, a satellite TV dish, and a car, all of which were illegal before.
Too bad we can’t get North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam on the same footing as the Iraqis.
The world is safer. It’s kind of scary knowing we are in a shooting war, but we have their attention focused, and whenever they stick up their heads we take them off. We are dismantling their networks and making life more difficult. The jihadists are having trouble recruiting people. The Iraqis certainly aren’t. Why should they, with all the improvements in their lives? Why should they want to go back to the 8th century? The terrorists are coming in from outside countries—Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc., but not Iraq. If we were so bad for them, wouldn’t they be getting more Iraqis?
I didn’t see this in your articles, but I do have to admit I got a laugh out of the poor schmuck peace activists who got kidnapped by the terrorists. Talk about a group of people that can’t get no respect–it’s gotta be them. The first group goes to Iraq before the war, says we’re here to protest, gets told, “OK, that’s great, form a circle around the Ministry of Defense Building, we think that it might get bombed.” Then the war is over, we are in the square helping the Iraqis pull down Saddam’s statue, when some of the recently freed locals see some of the protesters coming out to chant at us, and tell us to go home, and the locals want to go kill them. Now our guys are having to protect them from the people that Saddam wanted to keep enslaved. Then to top it all off, they get captured by terrorists whom they wanted to support all along. You just have to wonder what was going through their heads. I wonder if it was, “Hey, Ahmed, I love you, I want your side to win, you’ve got the wrong guys.” LOL.
Seems to me you also have some issues to resolve with your father. You might want to seek some professional help. If I read that, and you were my kid, I’d be writing you out of the will. You equate people in the U.S. Armed Forces with your basic terrorist? Maybe your Dad didn’t take you to the base often enough, or teach you the code of the armed forces, or let you read the UCMJ or something. You apparently believe Kerry’s lies (which he has since denied, once he got caught) that there was widespread baby killing going on in Vietnam, or that all soldiers are like the losers in Abu Graib. You think someone who regrets the taking of innocent civilian lives, and who can get punished if he does, is morally equivalent to someone who straps on a bomb wrapped in nails and steps onto a school bus full of children. You simply amaze me.
But isn’t it nice, to be able to post this blog in a wonderful country like America, where you don’t have to walk two steps behind your husband wrapped head to toe and be kept illiterate, where if your blog were discovered you would be whisked off to the rape room where you would be gang-banged in front of your husband and children?
Your basic premise, that all we have to do is be nice enough and kind enough and that the rest of the world will turn away from evil simply because we wish it so is not real.
Sleep tight. Your American soldiers are protecting you, whether you want them to, whether you appreciate it, or understand it, or not.
From E. P. Harmon:
A lot of left/right political disagreements arise because people come to trust very different sources of information; the basic “facts” and assumptions we each accept as “true” are often quite different ones. Yet we all have to trust someone, sometime, and no one can arrive at a belief system entirely from firsthand experience. For instance, probably neither of us has ever been to Iraq; yet even people who have visited there, or who have lived there, or even grew up there, don’t agree about what’s going on there. It’s always hard to know whom to believe.
We can choose to listen to and trust generalists and popular authorities—public school texts, teachers, ministers, politicians, talk-show hosts…or we may choose to read and listen to experienced specialists with sterling credentials in various fields of expertise. But regardless of whom we read and hear and consider, all authorities are biased, because they, too, have arrived at their conclusions secondhand, and using incomplete information. No one ever knows everything.
Yet you and I and everyone else must nevertheless struggle to make a living, understand life, contribute, care for ourselves and our loved ones, and perhaps, realize some of our dreams—and most of the steps we take along the way are difficult ones—from childhood until the day we die. I think we would both agree that we live in a world full of people who are often angry, confused, and dangerous, and that to be human is often to be mistaken and harmful.
In the midst of all this struggle, pain, and confusion, we have to make a myriad of moment-to-moment decisions on every conceivable thing. With each decision, we can take only one of two courses of action, neither of which guarantees good results, safety, or prosperity, neither of which feels like an obvious best choice, neither of which is completely defensible, and both of which are risky, confusing, frightening, and difficult.
One course of action is to focus on our fears about the evil that mankind is capable of. This fear-based course of action can seem like common sense if we feel individually and collectively under constant attack from those who would hurt or compete with us. This course urges us to prepare to defend ourselves, to act aggressively, and to return fear with more fear, on both a personal and global scale.
A second course of action focuses on the good people are capable of, believing that love, in all its forms (respect, gentleness, openness, kindness, listening, patience, forbearance, acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, cooperativeness, agreeableness, and so on) is stronger than fear in all its forms (hate, anger, violence, envy, suspicion, jealousy, greed, etc.), and also works better to improve human lives and relationships in the long run, whether personal or global.
A fear-based life assumes that, aside from minor human similarities, few people are really very much like you; most are less trustworthy, less virtuous, and less reliable, and most are more dangerous—so it makes sense to hold people at arms’ length, to hurt them before they hurt you, and to hurt them back, even more, when you are hurt.
A love-based life assumes that, despite superficial differences, most people are very much like you in most ways, having the same human sets of fears and needs and goals and loves and failings as you do—so it makes sense to offer compassion, respect, and forgiveness to all, including yourself (i.e., treat others as you would want to be treated—the “golden rule.”)
Both courses of action rely upon having in mind a particular attitude—“where you come from” mentally—rather than any differences in “what’s really out there.” Both courses of action are difficult paths to travel, confusing, and tenuous. Both require courage to live faithfully. Neither offers any guarantee of safety.
A life based on self-protection can offer comforting feelings of power, control, and safety—at times. But since most people like to be trusted, loved, and forgiven for their many mistakes, a defensive/aggressive attitude can become an increasingly lonely option, as relationships become more complicated and difficult to control, micromanage, or resolve—both personally and globally.
A life based on open giving also has many drawbacks and disappointments. No one likes getting kicked in the teeth, suffering injustice, or being walked on. A life based in love can be very frustrating, since love is an ideal impossible for humans to live up to—and no one ever gets it right. At most, you can chip away at such goals, and hope to keep on improving. Even then, since everyone is human and fallible, others will still hurt us and let us down, and we’ll still do the same to others. On the whole, though, people who care and trust and forgive draw other like-minded people to them, so lives based in love often move toward greater sharing, acceptance, support, and peace—both personally and globally.
Both general courses of action are logically indefensible. Laying down one’s defenses and allowing oneself to be vulnerable and open seems like asking for nothing but trouble—both personal and global. And just as surely, schoolyard bullies and warmongers seem to be asking for trouble, since they frighten and alienate others and accumulate dangerous, angry enemies, both personal and global.
Is either of these approaches right, and the other one wrong? Who can say? Everyone gets to choose the approach they think will work best for them.
In response to some specific comments in your letter: No, I don’t hate military forces, either ours or “theirs.” I believe that most soldiers everywhere, on all sides, are trying their best to live good lives and live up to their ideals. I have lived around soldiers all my life, and am drawn to their courage, idealism, and selflessness. It is true that I don’t distinguish between the actions of soldiers who drop expensive high-tech explosives on civilian populations, and the actions of suicide bombers who strap themselves with cheap nail-bombs and climb on school buses; both choose to further their political goals by indiscriminate, deliberate acts of violence that result, as you say, in dead babies, which I can’t agree with, no matter what the cause; there has to be a better way to achieve one’s political ends. Yet both sides believe their cause is just, and both are willing to sacrifice their lives, and others’, for their ideals and beliefs.
I am profoundly impressed by the vision and courage of the many senior officers currently in our Department of Defense, not to mention the line officers and foot soldiers, who are exploring and suggesting peaceful, effective, and far less costly alternative approaches to defending our country that don’t involve militancy and war, demonstrating the admirable and thoughtful tradition of leadership and high ideals historically associated with our military.
I’m not a pacifist, although I suspect I might be safer and happier if I were, just as the noncombatant Quaker farmers who welcomed all weary soldiers from both sides were safer during the Civil War. If someone were climbing in my window, though, I would defend myself and my family, although research tells us that reacting fearfully and aggressively (especially using weapons) during such situations usually produces worse results all around.
I don’t believe God co-authored any religious documents (including the Bible and the Koran), although we can all receive his inspiration if we ask for it,. I do, however, think that most collections of ancient religious writings (like the Bible and the Koran) offer a lot of wisdom, along with some clunkers; fortunately, God gave us brains so we could thoughtfully tell which passages are which. Anyone can find a rationale for anything if they look hard enough in religious texts, including both violent and non-violent action.
I’m wary of all explanations of what went on in the past—what we call “history”—because history is always written by the victors. The truth is, no one can ever know for sure the whole story about any event in the past, just as we can’t even be sure we have the whole story today when reading the newspaper—which is the first, and always controversial, rough draft of history. There are, for instance, a variety of versions of why the Cold War ended. I always like to ask myself, when reading someone’s theory: “Who is benefiting from people believing this particular version?” And although I approach all history cautiously, I was a college history major, and love reading history.
I don’t think either you or I are naïve about the depths of ignorance, depravity, despair, and cruelty to which people everywhere can fall. I do think it’s naïve, however, to imagine that one’s own familiar, particular culture has a lock on moral superiority. Every culture has much of value to learn from every other, so it’s naive to think that “we” (“our” culture, religion, nation, race, ethnicity, gender, kind, etc.) is “right,” “superior,” and “good,” while other, unfamiliar ones are “wrong,” “inferior,” and “bad.” We should be very suspicious of all the frightening things we hear about foreign nations, religions, and cultures, because well-paid demagogues whose last interest is truth create huge profits for those who pay them well to drum up fear. If America had as many crazed, bloodthirsty enemies as some demagogues now claim, all the kings horses and men couldn’t have prevented whole U.S. cities from being blown away long ago, our civic water supplies and food supplies being poisoned, and so on. It’s just too easy to wreak civic havoc cheaply and anonymously.
I also think it’s naïve to assume that our own local or national politicians are generally any more trustworthy than are politicians anywhere, or smarter, or any less greedy, or any less megalomaniacal. That’s why our framers built checks and balances into our constitution, and why we should strive to maintain them.
I also think it’s naïve to think that a non-violent democracy can arise courtesy of a violent foreign occupation, or that torture and rape are not natural outcomes of, and necessary to the maintenance of any violently-achieved power structure, or that freedom of the press is not repressed by unchecked power, or that the ranks of armies are not filled with desperate people willing to accept jobs and money from any well-heeled power.
It’s naïve to think that any war, ever, is initiated for unselfish, pure motives. It’s naïve to think that gentle, cooperative people living quietly in the lands of their ancestors are the bad guys, while the good guys are the armies from afar blowing everything up. It’s naïve to assume that partisan politicians are ever fully in control of any situation, or have much of a clue about taking care of people, or about international relations, or about running wars. It’s naïve to think that more killing ever results in less killing, and that hatred and violence don’t create more hatred and violence. It’s naïve to think that any nation with a growing number of enemies will be safe during the 21st century.
It’s naïve to think that the most-endangered and most-threatened nation in the world today, the one most urgently in need of taking pre-emptive military action to protect itself, is also the single, most-feared hegemonic empire best-armed with far more nuclear and conventional and high-tech weapons and money and soldiers and political and economic power than any other alliance of nations in the history of the world, the one nation with established military bases all over the world, the one nation currently waging wars in countries with prized economic resources, while ignoring (or supporting) dictatorships and tyrannies elsewhere.
It’s naïve to assume that any bureaucracy allowed to hide its activities behind a cloak of “national defense” is telling the truth about its results. It’s naïve to think that a small minority of citizens who perceive they have an interest in voting every four years for one of two unappealing candidates from two smarmy and very similar political parties running big-money campaigns in elections replete with fraud, have achieved much more than a degree of democracy. To be sure, I count my blessings and strive to strengthen the many great things this nation has achieved, because many countries are far less democratic. On the other hand, there are many far more democratic countries (including some without constitutions, by the way) from whom we could learn a lot.
On the subject of Islam: No one likes change, and Islamic migration has frightened those in the West who know only enough about Muslims to be terrified of what TV, radio, and pulpit demagogues tell them. Yet the highest and best practitioners of all major religions, including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, are people anyone would respect, for their caring, their responsible lives, and for their great wisdom—if only we had the opportunity to know and understand them. On the other hand, there are practitioners in every religion, including Christians, Muslims, and Jews, who are ignorant, terrified, angry people who would bomb whole countries, who hate whole civilizations, races, and even genders, because they fear them too much to make an effort to understand them.
The West has much to learn from Islamic culture, as Islam has much to learn from us. Furthermore, both cultures are often wrong, mistaken, and cruel—in different ways. All cultures, ours included, grow accustomed and blind to their own particular sets of shortcomings. For instance, most Muslims are simply aghast that our culture allows so many young girls to grow up alienated from their families, schools, and churches, to become diseased, pregnant, promiscuous, alcoholic, addicted to drugs, divorced, abandoned, prostitutes, single mothers, etc. Just as we, in the West, are dismayed when we hear that Muslims cover their women and keep them hidden and schooled at home. The only thing we can know for sure, though, about what we hear, is that nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and to be wary of well-rewarded demagogues and their sponsors, who have a lot to gain financially from terrifying people with horrifying visions of the inhumanity and stupidity of our imagined enemy-of-the-day. The only road away from fear is understanding, which only comes with willingness to actively learn more about what it is we fear.
Non-violent activism, a form of love, is the most powerful force in the world, far more powerful than armies and weapons and bombs. Gandhi’s non-violent protests brought down the most powerful empire in the world in India, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s non-violent power brought civil rights to blacks in the American South. Both of these were long-standing, hard, hard problems, resolved, not by cowards and flakes, or by violence, but by courageous people of faith, who believed in the power of love, and who offered the tough, powerful solution of non-violent political activism.
The night before he died, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It’s nonviolence—or nonexistence.” The Dalai Lama has declared the 21st century, “the century of dialogue.” We can all learn more when we exchange views, listen to one another, ask questions, and keep an open mind.
Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net