eThoughts : What Our Soldiers are NOT Fighting For

It’s been yet another run in which human lack of responsibility has reigned in the local arena. The ongoing effects of irresponsible dog owners, drivers, neighbors and music, cell-phone users, tossed-trash, and, well, add infinitum, sometimes seems to trump peace and beauty. Freedom and liberty and privacy cannot be used as an excuse to avoid the responsibilities that humans accrue when they take on possessions and influence. We are not sending folks off to war so people can ignore what they chose to own and how their lives affect others. Ignoring the impact of our choices is not a privilege of freedom, it takes freedom away by resulting in ignorance.

So here it is, my dedication to all those soldiers who’ve ever fought to protect us and others—to my parents, my friends, to all those I’ve never known and will never know:

Our soldiers are NOT fighting for our freedom when we take away or interfere with the freedom and privacy of others without due process. That’s us dictating what will go on in other lives without consultation. In other words, that’s each individual being a dictator. Hello—that’s exactly the opposite of what our soldiers are fighting and dying for! If we are doing these things as a regular pattern and we say we support the troops, we are full of bullshit. If we don’t support our troops and are doing this, we’re still full of bullshit. It’s not even a debatable point.

Our soldiers are NOT fighting to preserve our choice to be ignorant or irresponsible—it’s not the land of the free that allows that, that’s the land of the ignorant. Hello—guess why we have to go to school from about five-years old until about eighteen? Yep, we theoretically don’t want ignorance. The fight isn’t so we can be stupid when that stupidity affects the lives of others. And just because stupidity happens a lot is not a sensible reason for excusing it—it’s a stupid reason. Try this on for size—our soldiers are fighting so we can be free from stupidity.

Our soldiers are NOT fighting so our ignorance and irresponsibility will NOT be brought to our attention. And when it is, how is it that only our individual or collective resentment matters!! The fight isn’t so we can live in a land that allows our trespass and irresponsibility and protects us so we can keep at it. That’s not freedom, it’s practiced ignorance and it is a decidedly egocentric, sophomoric perspective. Hello—it’s OUR world, OUR neighborhood, OUR streets and OUR responsibility. I know that in a myopic world it’s tough for us to hear anything that doesn’t seem to serve us, but if we broaden our perspective to something more than six inches past our lizard brains, we might happen upon a broader, more inclusive view. It’s sometimes called growing up, though growing up appears to be a lost art.

Our soldiers are NOT fighting for our liberty so we can TAKE liberty with and from other people. The fight isn’t so we can do what we want, the fight is so we have the freedom and liberty to practice attention. Hello—when we practice attention, we get better at it (try and guess what happens when we practice ignorance). And what is there to pay attention to? Yourself AND others AND your stuff AND others’ stuff AND the environs, etc. As I said, when we’re individually or collectively dictating what happens to others by practicing ignorance and irresponsibility, we’re doing exactly what our soldiers are sent to fight against.

Our soldiers are NOT fighting so we can have individual independence. Hello—each of us is not so independent in the first place. Do you grow your own food, make your own sunlight, manufacture your own energy supplies, build your own road or car or refrigerator or couch or bed? Do you do your own surgery? Give the independence thing a rest—it is only part of the story. In case you’ve not looked out from the inside of your own head, the world works best when we work together.

In all probability, once on the front lines, our soldiers are fighting for theirs and their buddies’ lives, not for a political purpose or to save an individual or social way of life, especially when those at home haven’t the foggiest notion about how their lives are affecting others. No one is an island and no one is entirely or even mostly independent—if we were, we’d all be in the front lines instead of letting others fight for the rest of us. And if you were in the front lines, you’d be mighty glad that not everyone was doing their own thing—I mean, who would have your back?

I’ve got news—all of us are in some kind of front line, everyday. It’s worth repeating that the fight for freedom is not about freedom from responsibility and the fight for liberty is not about letting each of us take liberties. The fight is to allow each of us as individuals and as humans—and to get each of us as individuals and as humans—to do our part for all of us. Now, let’s get up off our individual and collective dumb ass and do it.