The timing is purely coincidental, but it's not a bad day to reflect on where we've come and how we got here, and this cartoon by Wolfgang Ammer ties in with some recent headlines that left me scratching my head.
That is, it's easy enough to discount criticism of the Affordable Care Act as a testament to the power of the insurance lobby or to criticize blockhead school reforms as a result of not knowing how the game is played.
It's more disturbing to see legislators stepping up to undermine our fledgling discussions with Iran.
Are they so naive as to have expected the relationship to have changed overnight? Did they truly expect Iran to admit to being completely wrong and to grovel for forgiveness?
Or do they simply feel we haven't expended enough lives and money yet, playing nation builder in the Middle East?
Most of all, are they so enveloped in American Exceptionalism that they don't see a parallel between their own chest-beating, crowd-pleasing hot air and that which they were so adamant to condemn in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
And do they not suspect that their tough-guy posturing will drive Iran from the table as surely as his drove us away?
All, of course, in the name of world peace.
Thou art like one of those fellows that, when he enters the
confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table and says
“God send me no need of thee!” and, by the
operation of the second cup, draws it on the drawer when indeed
there is no need. — Mercutio, "Romeo and Juliet"
But, look, here's the thing: We elected them. Yeah, "We the People."
So on this day, I'm less concerned about the immediate issue of Iran than with the overall issue of "How did we get here?"
We didn't always run around picking fights.
In fact, while the timing of our entrance to the First World War can be debated, we stayed out of World War II longer than we should have and were pretty poorly prepared when we finally had no choice but to step in.
However, at the time — and notwithstanding the War with Mexico and the Spanish-American War — our actions then were in keeping with our history.
We're a nation whose founders were so distrustful of standing armies that 20 percent of our Bill of Rights is specifically intended to curb them — one amendment to permit local communities to form their own militias in the name of national defense, and another to prevent the federal army from forcing civilians to house soldiers.
The Third Amendment never really came into play, and I suppose you could argue that it was the reason for its own irrelevance, but I think it's more persuasive to say that our disgust with how the British military had imposed on local citizenry would have kept the government from doing anything similar anyway.
The Second Amendment became somewhat irrelevant within the same generation that wrote it and, ironically perhaps, under the presidency of its lead author.
As noted here before, James Madison got to see the abject failure of the militias, not only in the form of reports of refusal to advance and of panic in the face of opposition in distant battles, but first hand at Bladensburg, where the militia ran like rabbits, exposing Washington to the advancing British army.
“I could never have believed that so great a difference existed between
regular troops and a militia force had I not seen the events of this
day,” the suddenly homeless president said, and, after the war, he moved to reorganize the nation's standing army.
And, while we can debate how the founders felt about a "well-regulated militia" after they saw it in action, the fact remains that the United States was built on a foundation of military reluctance.
The officers who served our revolution formed a group called the Order of the Cincinnati, honoring the Roman warrior who famously left his fields to fight, then resigned and returned to the farm.
It was an ideal more praised than followed — about the only actual hero of the war who truly embodied that ideal was John Stark — and the society was criticized for both its elitism and the ambitions of its members.
But the bottom line is that for every George Patton there is a George Marshall, and for every Douglas MacArthur there is a Dwight Eisenhower.
And, while on this day we thank those who had the courage to take up the gun, it is also up to us to reward those with the courage to lay it back down again.
Shaenon Garrity posted this classic Pogo on Facebook. I'm reposting it here:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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