[Newspoetry] In a democracy, Support your troops MEANS Crititize your leaders

[Donald L Emerick]

Dino, I am not sure what your little jingle means, but if it means the same as the statement that Mucka mentions (but would not appear to endorse, given his commentary tone), then it makes vast mistakes if it bans all domestic political expressions on the subjects of war after some war starts. The first mistake is that it confuses our democracy with some totalitarian regime, in which the consent of the governed does not matter. The second mistake is that it may confuse the desirability of support for our troops in the field with the undesirability of unblinking support for the current political leadership of our country. 

We never owe our present political leadership unblinking support. Indeed, we rather foolishly betray our democracy when we do not maintain an ever watchful, ever suspicious, ever skeptical eye upon our political leaderships. And, if we see acts of leaders to which we, as citizens of a democracy, object, then we would be morally wrong to bite our tongues and to say nothing. Democracy does not stop during war time and the need for democracy and its free expressions, especially then, may be even greater than ever before. 

By contrast, soldiers and sailors and air-folks temporarily surrender some of their democratic rights, while serving in the military forces, voluntarily. They are, basically, not free to criticize or to challenge possibly wrongful conduct of their officers. Thus, when there are far more men under active arms during wartime, the burden of regulation of the military not only continues to rest upon the institutions of democratic self-governance, in the idea of civilian control of the military, but also falls in extra measure on those of us who are left as civilians at home. It is our own individual contribution to the war effort of a democracy to be extra-critical of our leadership in war-time, lest they succumb to the arrogant grandeur of power. 

So, if you haven't criticized (which may occur as praise or as condemnation) your presidency-folks or congress-folks today, perhaps you are betraying in some small ways the very meaning of the sacrifices that our soldiers, sailors, and air-folks are making. I support our troops, but this is because I know they labor to implement the imperfectly expressed will of our imperfect democratic system. I therefore labor to see that they do not labor in vain; I labor to make the expression of political will better expressed and to make our democratic institutions less imperfect. The labor of democratic self-governance can never go on holiday, never sleep, and never stop. 

Thanks for listening, thanks for supporting our troops, in this old-fashioned democratic way, Donald L Emerick


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/newspoetry/attachments/20030321/77c7a450/attachment.html