Freedom from war

I did not have a GI Joe when I was a child. However, I did have a battalion of those green army figures. I remember simulating battles in the "hills." The hills were made up of blankets piled high with the nooks and crannies serving as caves and various turrets for my fighters. Not very romantic, bloody, or technologically advanced, but it got me through many a night as an only child (which, by the way, was cured when I was 12 1/2 with the advent of my baby brother).

Fighting has come a long way from those hills. The fight has taken freedom away from us in every conceivable manner one can imagine. Let us explore this concept, which I imagine runs counter to many of the ideals held by the readers of this blog entry.

1. First, war leads to overspending. There is no plane, missile, or submarine cheap enough. Your funds will be confiscated. "Fine," you say. You will gladly hand over your funds so that our government can fight the bad guys. When they line up for the next hand out, what excuse do you have to offer? I should hope it would be "it's all gone." Instead, like sheep to slaughter, we continue to write the check, buoy our poor troops (which they justly deserve some buoying), and spend, spend, and spend some more. This is making me thirsty.
2. Second, it typically means that the soils of other sovereign nations will be tread upon by our very expensive troops and their machinery. I do not know about you, but I sure would not want anybody else's troops on our turf. Somehow, perhaps through the continuing fascination with manifest destiny or just the sense that we are indeed better (Can anyone say pride? Deadly sin? "How 'bout a Fresca?"), we continue to go over there when we should be working on fixing over here. Our exportation of wrath demeans us as a nation and as a people. I am all for protecting our territory. Our territory does need protecting. The hills of Afghanistan do not pass the test under my definition of our territory.
3. In most cases, it is unconstitutional. War Powers Act and all, the US continues to deny the Founding Fathers' assertion that only Congress has the ability to declare war. It is okay though. I mean who would not want to change the rules and usurp the highest law of the land. Greed, anyone? Just do it. Swoosh!
4. Finally, and I have already mentioned it, it takes the attention away from pressing issues at home: education, healthcare, and infrastructure to name but a few. Who is going to solve these issues? The Iraqis? The Turks? A teacher, a nurse, and a carpenter from Mogadishu?

As we work our way through the seven deadly sins, I must stop and take a breath. We have already committed the most dangerous one and that is pride. Many argue that from the sin of pride blossom many of the other sins. From pride, we restrict the ability of others to live their own lives because we believe our life to be so much more important and so much more redeeming. Look around you. Is it? Are we fighting the right battles? Are we clawing for the best hill on the battlefield? Is all this blood worth this way of life? Are we indeed taxing and spending our way into oblivion?

The resounding, single answer that I always hear is "yes, of course it is," to all of those questions. I am sorry. You cannot have it all because there is just no damn place to put it all (thanks, Steven Wright)! Freedom from war will in fact give us freedom from many other vices. More importantly, it will free up countless dollars that can go back to the citizens of this nation. Let us declare war dead and have its funeral as opposed to the funerals of our brothers and sisters. As Danny DeVito states in Other People's Money, "now that's a funeral worth having."

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. I shall try to do the same. From the shortest hills I know in these parts, I bid you all a good night.