opinion by Charles M. Barnard
I had a conversation a few months ago which has bothered me some. I was talking with a customer of mine, a man perhaps in his eighties, about various topics including the war. He said, "I don’t feel it’s safe to state my opinions any more."
Unfortunately, I understood his thought all too well. "America: Love It or Leave It" has popped into the vernacular regularly over the past few decades. It gets my vote as one of the most Un-American sayings ever. There is perhaps no single right which is more truly American in spirit than the right to criticize the actions of the United States Government. Indeed, we are the only country I know of which has written into it’s constitution the right of a revolutionary to become President.
Americans have the duty to criticize the actions and policies of their government when they find them at odds with their personal conscience. After all, it is a "government, of the people, by the people and for the people." When the United States Government sheds blood, it is on all our hands. The US Government is subject to the will of the people, they are not ruled over, but self-ruled. If you do not oppose actions by the government with which you disagree, you are guilty of taking those actions.
The current war in Iraq is of interest, not merely because we are sending our young to die there, but because the bloodshed laid on the previous regime must be assumed by us as well—our government placed him in power, our government encouraged his actions—we are responsible!
War, it is said, is the sign of the failure of diplomats. Mr. Bush’s claim to be a "War President" is thus a claim of failure. It is the job of diplomats and leaders to keep us from war, and to lead us out of it should we find ourselves at war.
At the end of June, Mr. Bush has promised to deliver Iraq into the hands of an Iraqi government once again, one can only hope that it is a more humane government than the previous version. There has been much talk about "democracy" as if that will solve the problems. Perhaps, but at best it is likely to provide a framework in which problems may be solved.
Democracy is, in and of itself, no defense against tyranny. A democracy can be every bit as tyrannical as any dictatorship. If I were an Iraqi Kurd, I would be extremely leery of anything which smacked of "majority rules" democracy. Those of you who remember a bit of history will remember that the Soviet Union was a democracy, that Hitler was placed in control of Germany via a democracy, and that our current "democratic" government has vowed to keep suspected terrorists prisoners "even if they are found innocent in court."
Of course, the United States is NOT a democracy, but a democratic republic, which is controlled by a constitution, which strictly limits the powers that that government may exercise. Despite this control, we have managed, over the short history of our country, to repeatedly pass legislation through both the legislative and executive branches of government, which were then treated as "law" despite the fact that they were in violation of the Constitution, and thus, never truly "law" at all. Many people have suffered under such "laws" and continue to suffer to this day. Fighting constitutional law issues nearly always takes decades and can take lifetimes, such long time spans permit great injustices to occur.
Such "laws" should not make it through even the congress, of course, as all congressmen, senators and the President are sworn to "uphold and defend the Constitution." But such does not appear to be sufficient to prevent such "errors," even in the relatively stable political environment of the United States—how much more likely are such injustices in a less stable country?
One of the major stabilizing forces in American politics is the right of people (even non-citizens!) to openly and freely criticize the policies and actions of the government. Permit the squashing of dissenting voices and you begin the destruction of the very process which helps keep the US government "of the people, by the people and for the people."
I love my country, but I am not blind to its flaws, and I would no more ignore them and hope that they disappear than I would ignore dangerous behavior on the part of my child. I criticize my government because it is my government, and I am responsible for the course it takes. I say: America Love It: Fix It.