Two-bit Opinion #15: A Look Back

I wrote this in 1997 or so for my college paper, the Profile. My column was titled "Cheez Whizdom" and believe it or not they let me write it regularly during my junior and senior year. I came across it the other day and found it eerily prescient considering our current sociopolitical climate. Mostly when I read something I wrote in the past, I tend to recoil in horror, but this one doesn't make me cringe all that often. So here it is, reprinted in all its glory.


What this country needs is a good war. Not just some namby-pamby "police action" like Kuwait or Bosnia, I'm talkin' about good ole-fashioned, guns-ablazin', damn-the-torpedoes, remember-the-Alamo WARFARE.

Everyone knows that World War II brought the U.S. out of the Depression, so a war would be a great boost for our economy. More importantly, a war would put all our internal problems to rest. If we had a war to fight, everybody would buckle down and focus their attention on the war effort. All the religious extremists, paranoid militias and overzealous political activists would pipe down and work together. Nothing brings people together like a common enemy. And if some malcontents still insist on causing trouble, the government can pull rank and restrict people's liberties like in World War II.

A war would even shake the nation's young people out of their "gen-x" slacker apathy. Given the trends in fashion and music, it seems like our kids would rather be living in the Sixties when there was a war to fight!

Of course, the enemy in the war would have to be someone easily pegged as "evil." The Bad Guys have to be clearly drawn, but not so realistically as to appear actually human. Lord knows, that's why Vietnam failed. The hard part here is that real bad guys are hard to find. There just isn't anyone left to really despise.

OK, I think I've beat you over the head enough with satire.

Lenny Bruce once said, "if we didn't have Communists to fight against, then we would turn on our own leaders and ourselves." I think this seems particularly prophetic in light of the recent actions of Timothy McVeigh, David Koresh, the Unabomber, and the Montana Freemen; not to mention the current activities of anti-abortionists, animal rights activists, and PC watchdogs.

Americans have this unusual tendency to perform well under pressure. We have to be in motion to be at our best. We have to have a focus. Unfortunately, we seem to still need our focus imposed upon us. Ironically, we need something like a war to bring us together. It takes the worst to bring out the best. The United States are unique in that while most countries are bonded by common heritages or religions, we are a loosely united collection of separate subgroups. We have only 200 years of history to call our own, and a constitution that encourages individual freedom under a shared ideal of liberty. That's all. We have no single religion, political party, or other identity to govern us. Consequently, if we don't have something to divert our attention, we start eyeing each other.

Another problem America has is that it has defined itself as a place for all to live in peace yet it has populated itself with people who insist on being proud of their various heritages and ideas. A large part of the population seems to think that their ideas and points of view are the best, and so, with little else to do with their time, they assert their opinions on their unsuspecting countrymen. War gives people the opportunity to assert their superiority on a global scale.

Of course, we have to be assured that our actions are justified. We can't just go out and beat up Thailand because we don't like the way they do things. We've advanced too far morally for that kind of thing (or have we? - ed.). We have to wait for somebody bad to do something. The other guy has to throw the first punch, and now that we're a world power, no one seems to want to do that. So, we're left with a lot of pride and nowhere to express it.

All this adds up to dim the prospects of America ever having a peaceful, Greco-Roman "Golden Age." Only until we as humans can put aside our individual vanity and pride and accept our situation as a nation of differentiated peoples, can we peacefully coexist.