OK- I don't like political debate very much because it seems to me that most people do a lot of shouting and not a lot of listening. But I'm going to try to state some of my responses to what I've been reading here. All personal opinion, so don't get too hot under the collar, ok?
I am a patriotic person not because I believe America deserves it, but because I think America needs it. When the people who live in a country stop believing in the country's future, it stops having one. I am so exhausted with the news media here ripping and tearing at everything. I am so tired of the criticisms everyone throws at us, and that we throw at ourselves. Unless Americans can start believing in and investing in America again, what will become of us?
I think the best thing we could do to honor the military who serve and protect us would be to live lives of honor and integrity, giving our lives to building our families and communities. Why would they give their lives and their sanity to protect people who want to sit around and watch reality TV and swill beer and go to strip bars? If we don't stop the selfishness and become better people, pretty soon our military and police forces are going to wake up and look around and ask, "Why are we protecting these people again?"
I believe the church and state should never have been forcibly separated they way they have in America. Religion should not be legislated, but it should not be outlawed, either. All law is grounded in morality, which comes from religion. Either our religion or theirs. Anyone who disagrees with the Christian foundation of American law should try living under the law in a couple other countries I can think of. Anyone who tries to write religion out of the law is actually trying to write in the legislation of liberal humanism, as much a system of codified, rigid beliefs as any religious system you can name, and not inherently better just because it doesn't call itself a religion.
I don't believe the death of Bin Laudin will change anything because I believe the true force behind this war is that there is a whole culture of people out there who hate Americans and will stop at nothing to destroy us. I believe we have the right to defend ourselves. I also believe that our defense of ourselves is often tainted by greed and oily political motivations that the people involved won't admit to because they think the American people are stupid. Unfortunately, I guess a lot of us are. We have to get smarter and start THINKING instead of just voting for a cute face and a good speech-writer.
I do not agree that we should stop treating the people arrested as suspects of terrorism differently. The Geneva convention is VERY important, as are our laws of due process. The argument that our military is saving American lives by torturing suspects horrifies me. If we start this kind of behavior, where will it stop? What will differentiate us from the people we are fighting? Yes, some lives may be saved, but at what cost? I think it is appalling, and it shames me by association.
I am proud of every effort our military has made since World War II to rebuild and re-establish the countries that we invade. One of my greatest frustrations with the people who keep yelling that we should "Get out of Iraq NOW" for the last however many years is the knowledge that if we DID take their advice and just withdraw suddenly that it would turn that area into a cesspit of violence and abuses that is almost unimaginable. It's true it could be argued that cleaning up their country is not our job, but I am grateful to the men and women who stayed to try and do such an impossible task anyhow. I think it's funny that some of the people who have been yelling the loudest that we should get out of Iraq are also the people who, several years ago, were yelling the loudest that President Bush should "Do something about the terrorists RIGHT NOW." What did they expect him to do? They whine that they want to be safe, but they whine about anything the country tries to do to keep them safe, too. I think the American people need to start being careful what they ask for. Everything has a price, including freedom and national health care.
