Working with primary sources can be fascinating, intriguing, rewarding, and addictive. It can also lead you down tangents and make you think you should change your thesis topic entirely. U.S. presidents – who knew they said such interesting things.
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Being fully aware of political spin and propaganda, I am wondering if in the end this letter will be what history records for future generations to study.
Willingness to come together for war, but government shutdown in an attempt to stop a health care law. Where does this leave us and what does this mean for our future? Most importantly, what does this really say about us as a nation?
There is always a cause and effect to the choices we make. The dilemma is in determining if the cause justifies the effect.
Over the past few months, I have been studying the history of intervention as part of my pursuit of a Master’s in Military and Diplomatic History. There seems to be two common lessons to learn from the history of military intervention.
First:
There is no “getting it right.” Military intervention forcibly halts conflict for a time but does not end conflict. It always comes back. Inaction will cause many to suffer. Action will cause many to suffer. Therefore, do we intervene and cause suffering in order to stop suffering, all the while simply postponing war for the next generation? Or do we let war run its course and watch a generation die?
Second:
Stopping regional war but risking international world war is not usually worth the price. Unfortunately, no one can figure out when the price is worth paying. When 100,000 die? When multiple nations topple? When the threat reaches your own back door?
There is one new lesson being recorded for our posterity even as I post this.
Those who call for war are seldom the ones who fight the war. This is nothing new, but it is being documented in great volume in the news and social media. Armchair warriors cry for a strong stand against tyranny and call it weakness when diplomacy is used. They approve of the jobs created by military buildup but disapprove of paying the bill. They think war is like a game of Risk, a game that when an impasse is reached you box it up and put it on the shelf for the next time you feel like prancing around like a peacock. Being strong means looking strong rather than acting strong.
What we should be learning.
The one thing that history doesn’t seem to teach anymore is the value of stepping back from a fight and trying for peace once again. When this choice is made, if it is made, it is belittled and viewed as a weakness. It, rather than warmongering, is called the cause of future conflict.
President Teddy Roosevelt said “Speak softly and carry a big stick…” But we do not speak softly any more.
Machiavelli advised to be respected rather than loved. He used the word “feared” but his context inferred respected because the Prince should avoid being hated.
The person who always carries a big stick will eventually be hated – hated for acting, hated for not acting, and hated for the threat of the big stick. Sadly, this is the lesson history is trying to teach but a lesson we just don’t seem to be learning.
Differing perspectives can elevate our comprehension of complex issues, but they can also drag us down into a pit of malevolence when discussion and debate are replaced by an unbending quest to convert or conquer.
While many US citizens debate the issue of security versus privacy, they neglect to seek answers to the most important question? Is the US bureaucratic and military muscle doing the work of securing the nation or has it been outsourced to those whose loyalties lie in the $$$$ rather than the flag?
The following are some of the current discussions on the issue of outsourcing security and defense:
The outsourcing of U.S. intelligence raises risks among the benefits
How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power
US Lawmakers Give Defense Contractors Reason to Sweat After PRISM Leak
U.S. Relies on Spies for Hire to Sift Deluge of Intelligence
What You Should Know About The Intelligence Community’s Contractors
Is there a danger in supporting YOUR TEAM rather than supporting OUR Team? Have we lost the OUR NATION and become irrevocably divided in a contest of finding fault? Has history become only the Myths and Legends with which we batter and attack the opponent? Or can history still teach us something about the reality of human fallibility and the imperfect nature of trying to do our best and falling short of expectations? Can truth ever be found if we only see what we want to see, only hear what we want to hear, and only perceive what we already perceive?
Are we still trying to learn, grow, evaluate, and improve – or are we simply taking sides?
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“Note to Democrats and Republicans: This Is Not a Game” by Mathew Dowd
The study of history should inspire us to seek more knowledge – not less.
Propaganda works on those willing to listen either from fear or from prior conviction. It can plant seeds of doubt, however seeds of doubt turn into trees of knowledge for any willing to explore rather than be led.
People keep talking about the ills of our government, about our liberties being at risk and about how bad the nation is now. But I really wonder how many of them have ever studied any history – real history, the kind that goes beyond even the freshman level American History course of most colleges. Before they spout off about the loss of rights, do they really do their very best to understand the basis upon which those rights were created or do they simply agree with the masses screaming foul?
I often wonder if the propaganda material of 1770s and 1780s is all the people of today know about and whether they understand that not all the Founding Fathers agreed on the propaganda. The one thing they did seem to agree upon was creating a Constitution that did not hem us in but rather grew with us, adapted as we adapted, and outlived the political rhetoric of any one generation.
Lastly, I wonder if the spouting masses of today have any real idea of how much compromise those Founding Fathers put into not just the Constitution, but into the governance which then had to follow in order to provide for the protections the Constitution promised. Or how many times it took the threat of war before they would step down from their soapboxes and agree to compromise.
Maybe it is our turn to set aside the soapbox and pick up a scholarly history book, one that challenges our notions rather than simply tells the mythical side of the story.
Pithy Ponderings 