WAR
Thurs. Aug. 20th, 2014, Wed.
Feb. 18th, 2015; posted Wed. July 8th, 2015
During peace, people learn life lessons very, very
slowly. During war, people learn life
lessons very, very quickly, but on the other hand, a lot more people die young.
The reason I am in favor of peace is that I want to have
time to think.
As a romantic liberal, which I am, I believe that even
people who are not very good at thinking and don't care for thinking deserve a
chance to think -- and the rest of us, a
fortiori.
Have you ever thought to yourself, a military recruiter
might look at a person and say, "That person evidently doesn't like to
think, so there certainly wouldn't be any harm in asking them to agree to put
themselves in harm's way, and in worse case scenario to die for their
country" ?
Well, as I say, I believe that even people who don't like to
think deserve a chance to think.
It is unrealistic to think that our species can eliminate
war. But on the other hand, it is not
unrealistic to think that we can make wars less common if we put our minds and
our hearts into the task.
There is usually no way to measure whether a war has been
postponed by taking a particular course of action. I walk by faith in this matter. I can't prove
to anybody's satisfaction that a certain course of political action has
postponed the next war; but I believe
that certain things the United States is doing, or could be doing, will
postpone the next war. That's a
criterion which I bring into play, when I figure whether I'm in favor of a
particular foreign policy.
