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Posted on 09/27/2001 9:04:28 AM PDT by Starmaker

Although I consider myself to be a relatively nice guy, and have the ability to get along with nearly anyone, those who have known me for any length of time can attest my having just a few personality quirks. Surely, the most notable of which is my tendency to go off on a self-righteous diatribe without warning, and irrespective of the circumstances or surroundings.

An example of this was on display during the recent star-studded telethon, "A Tribute To Heroes", intended to benefit the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. For all of the good intentions, I could not help but be annoyed at this collection of Hollywood elites now rallying around the flag and stooping so low as to invoke the name of G-d. The hypocrisy of many in this group who had done so much to facilitate the two election victories of Bill Clinton and thereby contribute mightily to our current problems was almost too much to stomach. Their near total failure to reference those who died at the Pentagon, and their refusal to utter the name of our current President while referencing the liberal icons of John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spoke volumes. Needless to say, if one was attempting to draw a sense of patriotism or heartfelt emotion from this production, I was not the person to be with.

Though the chemically induced, intellectually vacant, amoral antics of those in the entertainment industry often arouse my ire, few within the political arena more consistently incur my philosophical wrath than do those who promote the pacifist perspective. While it´s true that any rational person harboring an interest in politics is required to develop a tolerance for the unwashed hordes who believe that opinion equals knowledge and that passion equals correctness, few are more consistently wrong and so dangerously misguided as those attempting to push pacifism.

Like many, my first direct encounter with such political leanings came about on a collage campus. The Gulf War was looming and there was a palpable feeling of exuberance among those who had lamented missing the heady days of protests and social upheaval during the late 1960´s and early 1970´s. Thanks to my then waist length hair and pierced nose, I was able to move with relative ease through the crowds gleefully chanting silly anti-war slogans that they had, no doubt, learned from MTV or in their "Peace and Conflict Studies" classes. Though I indeed looked the part of a radical, make no mistake, even then I was an open and unapologetic conservative.

My fascination with the neo-Flowerchild goings-on in the main mall of Wayne State University was not dissimilar to that surely felt by an anthropologist when stumbling upon a primitive culture, which was thought to be extinct. I watched occasionally in order to satisfy my morbid curiosity and to chuckle at groups of people merrily advertising their ignorance. The experience abruptly changed, however, when I noticed one protester, exercising his First Amendment right by attempting to burn the flag. Although I succeeded in liberating Old Glory, while peppering its assailant with a few colorful expletives, the event left me permanently confused as to why someone would want to destroy the symbol of a nation that gives him the right to protest in the first place. But as time went on it became more and more apparent that the "thinking" of such people has little relationship, if any, to logic.

It is understandable, but not excusable, that someone could be so uninformed as to not see the importance of stability in the Middle East and its relationship to United States security. Likewise, one might see how a person who was hopelessly lost in the dogmatic, alleged benevolence of Socialism could miss The Cold War´s real life and death struggle between mutually exclusive systems. But the threat posed by international terrorism is a no-brainer, yet this has not prevented pacifists from demonstrating their detachment from reality once again.

The dust cloud had not settled on Manhattan, and the fires at the Pentagon had not been extinguished before the cries of opposition to a war on terrorism began to emerge. Leaping at the opportunity to protest an actual war, the anti-globalization movement has, for the moment, abandoned their meandering, incomprehensible struggle against global capitalism. The Marxist sympathizing International Action Center, along with the anti-globalization group, International Action Center, has hastily organized an effort to "surround the White House" on Saturday, September 29 as a protest to the impending US military strikes.

Expected to participate are former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, the New Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Dominican Workers Party, among others. The thought of a ranking member of the Roman Catholic Church making common cause with the godless communist ideology is more than a bit odd. No matter, the revolution beckons.

Gumbleton contends that terrorism is a symptom of poverty and suggests that rather than making war, that US policy should be focused on a redistribution of wealth. The problem, for anyone who cares to look at the lessons of history, is that systems that force such redistributions don´t produce wealth, and are compelled to persecute their people in order to get them to comply. He goes on to say that "war is unwarranted in any circumstances." Really? The millions of slaves freed as a result of the US Civil War and the surviving European Jews after World War II undoubtedly thought otherwise.

Peter Kuznick, a history professor from American University, has ridiculed "all the flags and dime-store patriotism" that have emerged since September 11th. He also believes that the call for military retaliation has reached a "feverish pitch" and objects to the patriotism facade, "whipped up by President Bush," in order to justify war. It is not clear what Mr. Kusnick would consider to be a proper justification, but it is obvious that the death of thousands of American citizens within our own borders does not qualify.

Professor Kuznick must be comforted in that there is one less symbol of "dime-store patriotism" to wave thanks to the courageous burning of the Star-Spangled Banner by an, as yet unnamed, Sacramento elementary school teacher in the presence of 30 6th graders. The thousands of anti-war protesters in London, Manchester and Glasgow, Scotland chanting, "An eye for an eye makes a blind world", should have soothed him as well.

Dr. Gordon Fellman of Brandeis University contributed his like-minded wisdom on the Fox News Channel by suggesting that: "If they want to dare us into a war, taunt us into a war, push us into a war, I'm not sure we ought to go into a war. It's something we ought to discuss… We need to discuss this among ourselves. That's what a democratic society does." If the recent traumatic events are what Dr. Fellman would characterize as a "dare", a "taunt", or a "push", I shudder to think what he would consider to be a proper motivation for war. And if we were to wait for it before acting, the odds are that the battle would already be lost.

For the time being, it appears that the cries of those opposing military action are going unheeded, the suddenness and scale of the damage inflicted on the United States has left few with any doubt of what is required. Furthermore, the realization that additional acts of terror are certain if action is not taken has created an uncharacteristically high level of clarity within world public opinion. But no level of public unity, and no number of victims will persuade the pacifist faithful that violence is necessary.

In any given conflict, there have been those who were more comfortable with the toleration of evil than with compromising their misguided principles. The countless failures of those such as Woodrow Wilson and Neville Chamberlain, along with all the additional suffering that was caused, will never convince pacifists of the folly of their beliefs. And the more I witness the ridiculous piety of those willing to offer the lives of others in sacrifice to those beliefs, the more I feel, as Theodore Roosevelt did: "That every molly-coddle, professional pacifist, and man who is "too proud to fight" when the nation's quarrel is just, should be exiled to those out of the way parts... where the spirit of manliness has not yet penetrated."

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