Against All Enemies, Foreign And Domestic
By La Shawn Barber (04/07/03)
I guess you’ve heard the news. Tom Daschle is saddened.
He’s saddened because his party doesn’t control the White House or Congress. He’s saddened because he and his comrades have run out of fuel for their faltering agenda. Most of all, he’s saddened because everything the Democrats have tried to do to President Bush since he took office has failed.
Americans know who the foreign enemy is. Three out of four people--70%--approve of military action in Iraq, and President Bush’s job approval rating is holding at 71%. Whiny Democrats like Tom Daschle are the domestic enemy. They detest George W. Bush, and their distaste for him runs so deep, they’re willing to sacrifice their own freedom and ours for a political edge. If Democrats like Daschle and his ilk had been running the country during World War II, we’d all be speaking German right now.
Notwithstanding the nation’s overwhelming support for the war, 61% of blacks oppose it, according to the Washington Post. Ironically, Saddam Hussein--a murderous monster--would gladly slit the throats of any “infidel”--liberal, conservative, black or white.
Among black dissenters is Ron Walters, the oft-quoted University of Maryland political science professor, who offered the Post his theory why so many blacks oppose the war. He says blacks have a “tradition” of opposition to war. “We take part in war, but are often opposed for moral reasons.”
On the contrary, Mr. Walters.
Like most liberals, he ignores history and conveniently dumps all blacks into the same category. Traditionally, blacks have supported the nation in time of war, despite dehumanizing discrimination they faced at home. >From the Revolutionary War to the war with Iraq, black men and women have served their country and upheld its ideals. Why? Because they saw beyond themselves something greater than themselves: Freedom. Such sacrifice and selflessness boggles the 21st century, liberal mind.
After serving in WWI, black Americans were ready to march to war for the second time in three decades. But WWII was destined to be different than WWI. This time, black America would raise its collective voice against the incongruity of fighting for American ideals while having to endure treatment as second-class citizens.
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered WWII, a black man named James Thompson wrote a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, then the country’s most powerful black newspaper. He wanted to know why he should defend a nation that treated him like a second-class citizen. Thompson suggested that blacks fight for a double victory in WWII--against the enemy at home and abroad. The Courier seized upon the idea and dubbed it the “Double V campaign.” Not only would black soldiers help defeat fascism and Nazism in Europe, but they would also defeat Jim Crow and de facto segregation at home. Letters poured in from blacks across the country in support of the campaign, and other black newspapers followed suit with similar campaigns.
Unlike certain blacks today, those in the WWII era understood that without the preservation of democracy, there’d be no America to demand equal rights from (or complain about). Ron Walters apparently disagrees. Instead of paying homage to true freedom fighters in time of war, he delivers the same old liberal line. “Black Americans are routinely told that there’s not enough money for housing, medicine, education and rebuilding the inner city, but…considerable sums can be raised for war and rebuilding Iraq…” he complains. Fighting to preserve American freedom and to make the world safe for democracy is not as important as hitting up taxpayers for more money.
Fortunately, liberals don’t run the country. Courageous, decisive, non-whiny men are out there protecting the precious freedom that I and every other American enjoys. Islamic terrorists are a global threat and must be stopped. They want to destroy the very liberty that allows even spoiled, pampered, coddled, college coeds with too much time on their hands to march downtown, block traffic, impede commerce and protest against President Bush while burning the American flag.
Still, I rest easy at night knowing an all-volunteer force is fighting to ensure that I continue to sleep under a peaceful sky.
War is ugly and only a maniac wants it. John Stuart Mill, a 19th century British philosopher-economist, recognized the existence of something far uglier. “The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
For America’s sake, better men and women are willing to forfeit their lives to make sure we all remain free. Maybe that’ll cheer up Tom Daschle.
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