My friend, Rico is worried about my mental health. Here’s what he says:
“John,
“I was thinking last night and what got me was that you used to hold high opinion about certain ways of being, like praying and general love for your fellow man and woman…And you used to live in the same hippie commune as me and now you just feel like those times were a waste and/or you devalue the time you spent doing those activities…I feel like you have selectively decided that some parts of your life were a waste when you post all this war-like rhetoric here…I like to argue with you about it, but really I think it’s corrosive to your Spirit to carry on the way you do…There’s something phony about the way you portray yourself and your history…It’s sad and I think you should examine the whole of your life in a new light…It’s like some sort of neurotic attitude you have that makes you tear down or devalue parts of your life experience so you can be content in your war-like philosophy…I’m serious…I know you used to be so gung-ho about tipi ways and now you just shift gears to an old incarnation of rhetoric for argument’s sake…Does this make sense to you? I feel that we could be closer if you were more real with what goes on in your thought processes.
“Okay, brother, I mean it!”
This is a very common response. Whenever I say the word “war”, my friends start showing deep concern because I have obviously lost my mind. OK, here, Rico, is “what goes on in [my] thought processes”:
1. The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. 3000 innocent people were murdered.
2. We are at war with a global, loose federation of terrorist organizations. Their avowed goal is to destroy, not only the U.S., but all of Western civilization.
3. Western civilization is good, and it is worth defending.
4. If we don’t defend ourselves by taking the fight to the enemy, we could quite possibly lose this war.
Does believing these things mean I am crazy? Is this evidence of deep-seated neurosis? We can disagree about tactics and strategy. We can disagree about whether terrorism is a serious threat. We can even disagree about whether war is ever justified. But how come whenever I say something that you disagree with, you avoid responding to anything I say, and start expressing sadness about my mental illness? I don’t do that to you. I just make sarcastic comments about your lack of a coherent argument.