“Whether We Like It or Not”

David C. Stolinsky, MD
April 19, 2010

President Obama expressed the wish that international conflicts be reduced, so that we would not be drawn into them. No one could disagree with this wish. But many persons, including me, strongly object to the rest of his statement:

It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. [Emphasis added.]

The president did not say the dominant superpower, but merely a dominant superpower. Yet he is ambivalent even about that. When he and other liberals express their admiration for Europe, they may mean not only socialism and government control of nearly everything, but also a military too weak to protect its homeland, much less to intervene elsewhere to defend freedom or stop atrocities.

American military power allows Europe to spend its money on bloated social programs, while having miniscule militaries that are good mainly for parades. Europe couldn’t even end the violence in Bosnia and Kosovo, its own back yard, but depended on us to do the heavy lifting. Europe can’t even keep its vital trade routes free of pirates. Europe depends on American power to defend it from terrorists. Europeans condemn our “militarism,” while they drive by military cemeteries filled with dead Americans − without whom they would be speaking German.

Europeans can afford to be pacifists so long as we defend them. But if we grow weak, who will defend them? And we couldn’t be like Europeans even if we wanted to. If we grow weak, who will defend us?

Obama was expressing his distrust of American power. This is no surprise. When you elected a man who spent years in a church where the pastor preached, “God damn America,” and who befriended someone who said of America, “It makes me want to puke,” what did you expect?

I like American power. Obama doesn’t. Face it.

I grew up in a liberal home. But in those days, “liberal” was used in the classical sense. John Kennedy campaigned on a platform of strengthening our defenses. Under Kennedy, about half the federal budget went for defense. Now, despite two ongoing wars, only about 19% of the budget goes for defense, representing only about 4% of the gross domestic product.

Kennedy was strongly anti-communist. Back then, most Democrats, including labor leaders, shared this view. Unlike labor leaders in Europe, our labor leaders followed the example of the founder of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers.

Gompers understood that capitalism is the greatest generator of wealth. He famously remarked, “The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.” Compare this to current liberals, for whom profit is a dirty word − often preceded by “excess,” “bloated” or even “obscene.”

Kennedy also campaigned for cutting taxes to stimulate the economy. When a questioner complained that this would benefit the rich more than the poor, Kennedy retorted, “A rising tide raises all boats.” Someone who said this today would be called a servant of Wall Street, or worse.

But now, “liberal” means leftist. Loathing of American economic power is linked to loathing of American military power. If our economy can be weakened with stifling regulations, crippling taxes, bloated welfare programs, monstrous debt and nationalization, there will be much less wealth available to sustain military forces.

Then who will defend freedom around the world? Who will restrain nuclear-armed rogue states like North Korea or, soon, Iran? Who will suppress terrorism or piracy? Who will counterbalance Russia or China when they act aggressively? No one, that’s who.

I wish President Obama could have met Sergeant Lee.

I never knew his first name. To me and the other boys in his high-school ROTC class, it was “Sergeant.” Even the rowdiest boys shut up when Sergeant Lee entered the room. We knew to whom we owed our freedom.

On his uniform, Lee wore a silver representation of a rifle on a blue background. I admired this badge, thinking it was for marksmanship. I soon learned it was the Combat Infantry Badge, meaning that he had served in ground combat. Below it was a ribbon I did recognize. The Purple Heart signified that he had been wounded in action.

I learned about military uniforms and insignia by the time I was 14. In contrast, Barack Obama still hasn’t learned. He twice referred to a Navy corpsman (medic) as “corpse-man.” Such profound ignorance reveals a profound lack of interest in military matters, which ill behooves the commander-in-chief.

We were taught that freedom has a price, one which Sergeant Lee had paid, and which we might be called upon to pay. We were being reminded that citizenship carries obligations as well as privileges, a lesson rarely taught today.

We were taught the obligations of manhood. But now, both “obligations” and “manhood” are politically incorrect concepts. Men aren’t merely sexually mature males. Real men take responsibility for the support of their families, and if necessary for the defense of their country.

But now, we kicked ROTC off campuses, then wonder why boys don’t grow into men willing to defend their families and fellow citizens. We kicked the Boy Scouts out as well, then wonder why boys don’t grow up trustworthy and loyal. We swallowed the fiction that boys become men like they grow beards – spontaneously. They don’t.

One day our class met on the rifle range. Yes, there was a rifle range in the basement of Washington High School in San Francisco. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there wasn’t one shooting during my years at this multiethnic urban school. There wasn’t a stabbing either, though most boys carried knives – Boy Scout knives.

Shootings aren’t caused by guns, or stabbings by knives, any more than beatings are caused by fists. They are caused by young males who were allowed to grow up without moral values, and whose only male role models may be rappers and gang members. Someone like Sergeant Lee could make a difference in the lives of today’s boys, just as he did in our lives.

Lee lectured us on gun safety. In mid-sentence, he put his hand on the rifle lying on the desk and pulled the trigger. The deafening bang of the blank permanently embedded the lesson that every gun was assumed to be loaded until we personally checked it, and that a gun should never be pointed at anything we were not willing to destroy. Today we babble about “gun safety,” really meaning gun confiscation, but Lee actually taught gun safety.

I recall my pride as Lee handed me a .22 rifle. I was 14, and being handed my first gun by a combat veteran meant more than my youthful vocabulary could express.

Later I realized that this represented entry into manhood. In effect, I was telling the world, “Yes, I accept the obligations of being a man, even though they may be difficult or even dangerous.” It may have looked like a rifle, but it was really a torch that was being passed. In being handed my first gun by Sergeant Lee rather than by a gang member, I formed a different ideal of manhood toward which to strive. I was luckier than many boys today.

My father was a physician, and I respected him. But because he had served as a private in the infantry in wartime, I respected him even more. Boys’ drive to be macho should be guided into positive channels, not repressed – only to erupt in antisocial directions.

For a generation, we watched movies depicting our troops as would-be “Nazis,” forgetting who saved us from real Nazis. We heard our troops described as “terrorists,” forgetting who is saving us from real terrorists. We tried to rid ourselves of anything positive about our troops, assuming – against all historical evidence – that we would never need them again. Well, now we do.

Sergeant Lee, and so many like him, bequeathed us our freedom. If we don’t fight to preserve it now, both at home and abroad, what will we say when we have to face them − and explain how we squandered their costly legacy, while devoting ourselves to selfish pursuits and meaningless amusements?

President Obama, meet Sergeant Lee. He could tell you about the horrors which occurred because we were weak, but which were ended because we had time to grow strong again. Whether you like it or not.

Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net.

www.stolinsky.com