Speechless
The article in this morning's WaPo by Professor Andrew Bacevich, an army veteran and prominent critic of the Iraq war, was the equivalent of a hard blow to the solar plexus. It's hard even to catch your breath when you read it.
Bacevich is a professor at Boston University who opposed the war and tried to explain why in numerous articles, columns and lectures. Ironically, his son decided to join the army and serve in Iraq, evidently to try to bring some positive change there. There's a deep strain of idealism in the American character, as we all know. You can probably guess what happened...the younger Bacevich died in a suicide bombing earlier this month, a casualty of the war his father opposed.
That's enough of a horror to contemplate right there--it turns your blood cold. But it apparently evoked no sympathy from a segment of our fellow citizens. Quite the contrary. Two of them, in fact, took time out of their busy day to plunge another knife into this grieving father, accusing him of direct responsibility for his son's death. His writings and opposition, you see, gave aid and comfort to the enemy, enabling that enemy to kill his child. Obviously, this "reasoning" goes, if Bacevich had just fallen into line and supported his President, his son would still be alive.
Please help me understand these people's worldview. Are they sociopaths, capable of inflicting grevious harm without conscience? Are they warmongers? Racists, maybe, people who get off on watching brown people get their comeuppance? Blind followers of authority? I cannot fathom the depths of bile and hatred that make this kind of outrage possible.
I don't understand.
Bacevich is a professor at Boston University who opposed the war and tried to explain why in numerous articles, columns and lectures. Ironically, his son decided to join the army and serve in Iraq, evidently to try to bring some positive change there. There's a deep strain of idealism in the American character, as we all know. You can probably guess what happened...the younger Bacevich died in a suicide bombing earlier this month, a casualty of the war his father opposed.
That's enough of a horror to contemplate right there--it turns your blood cold. But it apparently evoked no sympathy from a segment of our fellow citizens. Quite the contrary. Two of them, in fact, took time out of their busy day to plunge another knife into this grieving father, accusing him of direct responsibility for his son's death. His writings and opposition, you see, gave aid and comfort to the enemy, enabling that enemy to kill his child. Obviously, this "reasoning" goes, if Bacevich had just fallen into line and supported his President, his son would still be alive.
Please help me understand these people's worldview. Are they sociopaths, capable of inflicting grevious harm without conscience? Are they warmongers? Racists, maybe, people who get off on watching brown people get their comeuppance? Blind followers of authority? I cannot fathom the depths of bile and hatred that make this kind of outrage possible.
I don't understand.
posted by buckarooskidoo at 11:44 AM
4 Comments:
What matters if somebody don't believe in evolution? Are you going to judge them like a catholic inquisitor? Can you see the point? People have the right to believe the earth is plane if they want it. But you, my friend, you don't have the right to try them like an idiots because their beliefs. If you do it, you are not different to that medieval people. Can you see? The truth is out there, someone said, but nobody knows where it is.
receive my regard, and remember, you don't have to understand that people, I cannot either, but you have to respect them if you don't want to be one of them.
i think this belongs in the comments to the previous entry...but anyway, i'm fine with private citizens' believing whatever they choose about evolution. i am NOT okay with public officials, who must help us to determine wise courses of action with respect to science and fact-based phenomena like global warming, in denial about the most basic scientific facts. i would never vote for anyone who doesn't believe in science.
It's time we all begin living in the empirical world again...we've been following faith-based foreign and domestic policy for about 7 years too long.
Ah, but I do have the right to call them idiots. A person can believe the earth if flat if they want. And I can believe they're an idiot if I want. Such is the wonderful circle of life anonymous.
All people have a right to their own beliefs, but what Buck was reacting to in the article was not their belief, but their behavior to a grieving father, which was indeed atrocious. The only thing to which I can attribute such behavior is fear. Hatred is a byproduct of fear, and people with such a deluded world-view as these live in constant fear that their own doubts will be exposed. Thus they lash out hatefully against all who oppose their views.
Post a Comment
<< Home