Narcissus and his mirror

Sheesh. This is pretty incendiary stuff. And that, in and of itself, doesn't bother me. I actually tend to like incendiary, when it makes a salient point. What I don't like is incendiary for the point of being incendiary. Unfortunately, Mr Arkin falls into the latter category. First, he makes a critical error in both this column and its predecessor column: Divorcing the military from the American people. He makes the statement that the American people are supporting the military, but the military isn't supporting the American people. Mr Arkin, the military ARE the American people. Not the sum of it, no, but not something other than it, either. When the military is considered as something other than the American people, which Mr Arkin has consistently done, then they are almost automatically better-than (which is how Mr Arkin accuses them of acting) or lesser-than, (which is how Mr Arkin himself treats them via his condescension). Second, the idea that the military is "hiding behind the Constitution" removes his column from the realm of the serious and puts it in the land of the farcical. All of us, from the myriad persons who commented on his blog to the kid who wears offensive statement T-shirts to school to the incalculable journalists writing everyday in their respective--not respectful--publications, hide behind the Constitution. We have certain rights--a noteworthy one to you, Mr Arkin, being the freedom of speech--and the Constitution protects those rights. Third, the article does a great disservice to dialogue on the War in Iraq. Our combat in Iraq is pretty definitively either right or wrong. If it's right, than Mr Arkin is off the mark in a myriad of ways. But even if it's wrong, Mr Arkin shows himself completely unable to do what liberals say they are doing: Support the troops without supporting the war. Mr Arkin has written poorly thought out comments on the subject--poor thought often being the risk of writing on a blog, with its immediacy and lack of an editor, or, in my case, Guinness--and as soon as someone points out his error, he screams "Censorship! Squashing of dissent! Right wing jackboot intolerance!" (by the way, Mr Arkin, how does the comfort of that Constitution protection feel right about now, anyway?), and goes on a sanctimonious diatribe against those idiot kids in the military, the evil Administration that's deployed them, and all the mindless fascists who support a plan that anyone with the brain of a pterodactyl can see is a guaranteed failure. Well, so much for reasoned dialogue. What we need in our public square is someone who can stand in the crossfire and offer thoughtful commentary on what is wrong with this war and do so without ostracizing ANY of the opinions offered, except those which are obviously simply vitriol (like Mr Arkin's, for example). The conservatives have trouble hearing dissent without treating it an unpatriotic. But the liberals have trouble hearing dissent, period. They have decided who is mainstream and rational, and who is not. The military is not part of the American people. The conservatives are out of the mainstream. Only the demographic that agrees with Mr Arkin is spared the invective of Mr Arkin. Pity, that. For there is where America is closest to fascism.