What the comic says is accurate. Less than half of currently serving USA servicemen and servicewomen think that we are likely to succeed in Afghanistan. But, we have a definition problem in the USA. The person on the left asking the questions is a reporter from an ostensibly neutral network. Nevertheless, as you can see up above, the reporter is anything but neutral. In fact, he already has an embedded definition of patriot on his mind. What is a patriot? Anyone who shouts USA USA USA the loudest, who is convinced that the only reason we lose wars is because politicians back home go soft, and who believes that leaving under almost any circumstance but that the country we are in is a duplicate of the USA approach to government is a loss. Anyone who believes that the war has reached a point of negative returns, who believes that we are losing the locals, who believes that it might be time for us to pull out is not a patriot. The only person who was given a small pass on this definition was Ron Paul, who states precisely what the “non-patriot” states, but whose other stances are so clearly conservative/libertarian that no one dares accuse him of not being a patriot.
Father Orthoduck sees the above as being one of the main problems to a resolution of any of various matters in this country over which arguments have broken out. As long as we have a segment of the country whose definition of patriot does not allow for any questioning of policies on any issue which they have declared by fiat to be a patriotic issue, so long will we have this untenable turmoil, which is reflected all the way up into the halls of Congress. Though many conservatives decry any attempt to compare the current situation to Viet Nam, Father Orthoduck is beginning to think that it may have begun to resemble that. Just like when Father Orthoduck was drafted to serve during the Viet Nam conflict, we have wars that are becoming increasingly unpopular, a segment of our population that is becoming increasingly vocal about patriotism and the necessity to remain there regardless of possible outcomes, and a culture that is split into at least two warring factions.
No, there is no “peace” movement, but there was a short-lived Occupy movement. But, just like the late 1950’s through 1970’s, there are accusations of Marxism (so-called communists in the 1960’s, so-called socialists today), there are accusations of lack of patriotism, and the politics are divisive and counter-intuitive. “Security” has become and issue, with one side arguing that any measures the government wishes to have under the rubric of “security” must be allowed. And, just like the 1960’s, one side argues that spending must be cut on anything other than defense, while the other side argues that defense must be cut, but not anything else. It is beginning to look as though that period had spawned a doppelganger which has come to life today.
The trouble is that the period back then led to some severe cultural changes, and a very rough ride, from the late 1960’s through 1980. The cultural changes thus far have been an increasing conservatism in some segments of the population–think Spiro Agnew–but with probably a cultural explosion about to happen which will try to pull the country the other way. Father Orthoduck would counsel that you strap on your seatbelts, even rougher weather ahead.
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