The Wishy Washy Middle

Posted on April 11, 2003 in The InterNet War

I’ve been getting dissed by so many “friends” who don’t like my views on this war and cut from so many blogs run by people with “open minds” (except when I criticize something they say), that I’ve been thinking of putting up a form: “I DON’T WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND ANYMORE”. In addition to the name, I’ve come up with some reasons for people to check:

• You disagreed with me.
• You disagreed with me and made fun of my point of view. (translation: you disagreed with me and rationally rebutted me.)
• You said that you wouldn’t discuss things with me because I won’t tell you how I feel.
  
• You disagreed with my friend.
  
• You won’t let me call you names or imply that you do weird sexual things.
  
• You made me feel bad.

The nature of the reasons is telling. Except for a couple of screwups (for which I did issue immediate apologies), I haven’t seen any reason why I should be the one apologizing. Supposedly, we live in a free country where views are open. Supposedly, when you air your views in public, you know that you run the risk of other people disagreeing. I haven’t cut anyone for reasons of political disagreement in honest, civil discussion. (One left my site because SHE disagreed and another followed her because the first “was her friend”.) I still support the same causes such as freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to love who you wish, freedom to be alive regardless of your skin color or views, etc. I still oppose the death penalty. For Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, or the murderer of Samantha Runnion. Hussein and Bush have killed far more than that guy.

Aside from the possibly fictitious Sargent Lori (sounds like Dr. Jackie, doesn’t it?), I’ve not been confronted by many hawks on this blog or in real life. The pacifists tend to praise me, but the worst flak I take are from the wishy-washy middles who have dropped me like a hot potato for, crime of crimes, disagreeing with them!

The military folks that I have talked to understand that I don’t want any dead in the Middle East — not our forces, not their’s, and certainly not their civilians. It sinks in. They know where I stand, though they may continue to disagree. The best retort that they offer me (they evidentally want me to join the wishy washy middle) is that they are the defenders of our way of life. Sgt. Lori’s canned message consisted of a fable in which a father had his son look out the window and salivate over the green trees, houses, and shiny cars.

The point which renders the defense for the whole Iraq debacle absurd is that we don’t have a border with Iraq. No Iraqis are streaming over the border to seize our cities. Our private property is not threatened. It is they who are being pressed to give up THEIR OIL which we have highhandedly claimed as our own.

The wishy washy middle tries to please us both, which satisfies the war mongers because it lets them keep bombing. They get upset because we pacifists will not settle for anything less than stopping the bombing and bringing our troops home, never again to meddle in other countries’ affairs without the full support of the United Nations. Again and again, in defense of themselves, they say “You’ve got to keep an open mind.” Those have often been the words when, after I have pointed out that killing is killing is killing, they slam the door in my face and stop thinking about the possibility that this war is a bad thing.

Ironically, some of the ones who told me that I shouldn’t count anyone as a friend who slams the door in my face because I have disagreed with them or criticized them have joined the pack fleeing from this blog when I disagreed with them. The wishy washy middle doesn’t want to “take a side”, they don’t want to see “bad people” or “good people”. They want to sit this one out and hope for the best.

It’s easy to do when the nearest shells are falling thousands of miles away, when you can sit out on your lawn and talk to the neighbors without worrying about a tank rolling into your neighborhood and blasting down the walls of your house, perhaps killing your children while they are playing in the bedroom. Nothing bad is happening around you. So maybe everything is going to turn out just fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s not happening to you.

What the wishy washy middle doesn’t realize are these simple facts: 1.) wars happen in neighborhoods; 2.) the people who must live through them don’t have better lives; 3.) some of your neighbors are helping destroy the trees and the houses in these other neighborhoods and killing is never a good thing; and 4.) the surest way to close your mind to another person’s point of view is to kill them. Which I oppose in all circumstances.

Are your lawn and your car and your house worth all the civilian deaths? Sorry, but there’s no middle ground where the issues are life or death, especially when the price you might pay for not having this war are just things.