RE: Unalienable Rights...

[thansen@moscow.com]

Ms. Huskey -

To quote Jack Nicholson from "A Few Good Men", 

" . . . but, you need us on that wall."

Take care,

Tom Hansen
Moscow

> Dear Don and Tom,
> 
> Help me understand why you're attacking me personally--name calling, for 
> example--for holding an idea that you don't agree with.  I don't think a 
> reasoned discussion about war and peace is possible if we  start from the 
> assumption that any critique of military policy is unacceptable or 
> unpatriotic.  Can we agree that each of us holds our convictions for reasons 
> which seem good and sufficient to ourselves, and that we can try to talk 
> about them without making assumptions about each other?
> 
> I believe that peacemakers put their lives on the line every day, that they 
> make enormous sacrifices, and that they do so with a clear vision that war 
> can never resolve conflict.  Peacemaking is not parasitic--it isn't the 
> hobby of comfortable cowards making cynical use of other people's arms.  It 
> calls for as much training, as much courage, as much self-sacrifice as any 
> soldier uses.
> 
> It seems to me that when we define protests against war or potential war as 
> something that is "permitted" by the existence of the military, we are 
> asserting that peace is simply an interval between wars.  I'd like to 
> advocate for a more dynamic view of peace and peacemaking.  It is possible 
> to find non-violent resolutions to conflict, but more importantly, it is 
> possible to conduct oneself, and one's nation, in a way that limits violence 
> to begin with.
> 
> Celebrating Human Rights Day,
> 
> Melynda Huskey
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "The things that make us happy make us wise."  John Crowley
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen@moscow.com>
> >Reply-To: <thansen@moscow.com>
> >To: "Don Kaag" <dkaag@turbonet.com>, "Vision 2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
> >Subject: RE: Unalienable Rights...
> >Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 06:20:30 -0800
> >
> >Greetings Visionaires -
> >
> >I support Mr. Kaag's comments 100%.  As a retired Army NCO with almost 21
> >years of service, I find Ms. Huskey's comments to be absolutely appalling.
> >To blame the soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors who are willing to 
> >fight
> >and die to preserve Ms. Huskey's freedoms for restrictions placed on those
> >same freedoms is unconscionable.
> >
> >Ms Huskey, what gives you the self-righteous gall to make such an
> >allegation?  It is easy for those in ivory towers to make vague inflamatory
> >comments about those whose sworn duty it is to protect and defend the 
> >castle
> >against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  Just remember that without 
> >those
> >brave protectors, the ivory towers turn to dust.
> >
> >Take care,
> >
> >Tom Hansen
> >SFC, U.S. Army (Retired)
> >
> >***********************************
> >Work like you don't need the money.
> >Love like you've never been hurt.
> >Dance like nobody's watching.
> >
> >- Author Unknown
> >***********************************
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Don Kaag [mailto:dkaag@turbonet.com]
> > > Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 8:30 PM
> > > To: Vision 2020
> > > Subject: Unalienable Rights...
> > >
> > >
> > > Visionaries:
> > >
> > > Melynda says, ..." And our First Amendment rights, not the paternal
> > > good nature of the folks with the guns, protect the expression of our
> > > dissent...."
> > >
> > > It is to secure those rights that soldiers bled in the snow at Valley
> > > Forge, and fought a revolution.  Without those soldiers, ragged and
> > > poorly-armed as they were, standing up to one of the best armies in the
> > > world, and their Hessian mercenaries, we would have no Constitution and
> > > no Bill of Rights.
> > >
> > > Again in 1812 we fought the British to keep our liberty, and it was
> > > soldiers and sailors and armed militia who put their lives on the line
> > > at Lake Erie and Bladensburg and New Orleans.  Meanwhile, American
> > > civilians in New England were making a nice living selling supplies to
> > > the British and the Canadians.
> > >
> > > We intervened militarily in 1917 to secure the victory of democracy
> > > over despotism in Europe in WWI.  It was U.S. soldiers and Marines who
> > > fought at St. Mihiel, Belleau Wood, Blanc Mont and the Second Battle of
> > > the Marne that saved England, France and Belgium, and American sailors
> > > who got them and their suppies there, across an Atlantic filled with
> > > U-boats.  One hundred seventy thousand died doing it.
> > >
> > > The generation that survived the Great Depression also fought WWII, and
> > > saved the western world yet again from fascists and imperialistic
> > > empires, and preserved yet again Americans' rights.  Do you think that
> > > without American men in uniform with guns that the Nazis and the
> > > Japanese would have spared the United States?  And where would your
> > > First Amendment Rights have been, then?
> > >
> > > After 50 years we won the Cold War, and now democracy and freedom are
> > > spreading to countries and peoples long held in bondage. "The folks
> > > with the guns", did that, too.  (And yes, Vietnam was a part of that
> > > war, and 58 thousand American men and women sacrificed their lives
> > > there, too.  Which is not nearly the number of Vietnamese who have
> > > perished trying to escape the communist paradise of the People's
> > > Republic of Vietnam, or who perished in post-war "reeducation camps". )
> > >
> > > If it weren't for "the folks with the guns", no American would have
> > > First Amendment rights.  The right to dissent is an essential one of
> > > those rights, and men and women with guns ensure that all Americans
> > > keep it.  We don't have to agree to what you are dissenting about to
> > > defend your right to do so.  That is immaterial.  Our military forces
> > > are not "paternalistic", just essential to the preservation of liberty.
> > >
> > > Your view of the United States Military is pathetic.  We are not
> > > thuggish automatons.  We took an oath to "Support and defend the
> > > Constitution of the United States of America".  We took it seriously.
> > > We don't do coups in this country.  Our military is apolitical.  They
> > > serve the people of the United States and their Constitution.  No one
> > > values First Amendment rights as much as military men and women.  We
> > > are willing to fight and die for them... and not out of "paternal good
> > > nature", either... it is our calling and our privilege.
> > >
> > > And as for the military causing constraints on liberties, let me remind
> > > you that it was Abraham Lincoln who suspended habeus corpus during the
> > > Civil War, not the military.  It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who
> > > signed the executive order putting Nisei into detention camps for the
> > > duration of WWII, and Earl Warren of California who recommended he do
> > > so.  Hugo Black wrote the Supreme Court decision that approved the
> > > camps ex post facto.  None of them ever wore a uniform, and all of them
> > > stand in the ranks of liberal statesmen in this country.  They were
> > > wrong.  But they were representatives of the elected civilian
> > > government, not the military.
> > >
> > > In another century, and another country, the great poet Rudyard Kipling
> > > said, "Makin' fun o' uniforms/That guard you while you sleep/Is cheaper
> > > than those uniforms/And they're starvation cheap".
> > >
> > > Make fun of uniforms.  Go ahead, it's your right under the First
> > > Amendment.  It is tacky, but it is your right.  And we will defend it.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Don Kaag
> > >
> > >
> 
> 
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