We are the only site on the web devoted exclusively to intellectual conservatism. We find the most intriguing information and bring it together on one page for you.
Home
Articles
Headlines
Links we recommend
Feedback
Link to us
Free email update
About us
What's New & Interesting
Mailing Lists
Intellectual Icons
Submissions
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic
by La Shawn Barber
8 April 2003
From the Revolutionary
War to the war with Iraq, black men and women have served their country and
upheld its ideals. Such sacrifice and selflessness boggles the 21st
century liberal mind.
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 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.
La Shawn Barber is a columnist for the TheRightReport.com, and a frequent contributor to the Washington Times, and her editorials have also appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Dispatch, BlackElectorate, The Black World Today, and other publications.