At some time in the long distant past, for the kingly investment of $1.50, I picked up a copy of Gone with the Wind at a used book store. As a teenager, in what seemed a rite of passage at that time, I read the book and saw the movie, both fictional attempts to write a rollicking, romance-filled story while supposedly depicting the Civil War from the perspective of the South. My acquired copy of the novel sat abandoned on the shelf until I picked it up again last week. It was a perfect accompaniment to a summer cold that had me coughing and sneezing, tired, crotchety, and uncomfortable. I could pretend that I was doing something (reading) while basically lazing around.
As I began feeling better, a section from the book caught my attention. The book’s “reprobate” hero dismisses the adulated men of the South who rushed off to fight the War between the States in the following statement:
“All wars are sacred. To those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn’t make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators.”
As he left office in 1961, President Eisenhower warned us of less-than-noble influences leading to war.
“…This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. …Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. …In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Whether from Margaret Mitchell or President Eisenhower, these words contain some truth but not all the truth. War is a way for some to manipulate events and amass money and power. But war is also a way to defend one’s family and homeland, to stand for what one believes. In a world full of bad actors, not being willing to go to war is the same as surrendering. Not being cynical leads to being duped; being too cynical leads to the end of a way of life.
As we head into the 250th anniversary of the United States, hindsight tells us that the revolutionaries of 1776 won. But more than a quarter of the leaders, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, their wives and children, accrued personal loss. They lost their money, their homes, and/or their health and lives.
Even though some of the signers, including those who became the early American presidents, accumulated additional wealth and status after the war, they placed themselves in positions of peril by leading the rebellion. They were not sitting in grand houses directing others from safe perches.
As our universities and academics rewrite American history, more than one generation of ‘educated’ elites has learned of the real and imagined flaws of this country, but not of its greatness. All they know of George Washington is that he did not free his wife’s slave; all they know of Thomas Jefferson is his alleged relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings. A populace that could read and understand Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and The Federalist Papers has been replaced by a highly schooled group who get information in sound bites of two minutes or less and have little ability to think logically, rationally, or independently. How can this growing body of the electorate possibly evaluate conflict in wise ways?
How should we be thinking about the battle against Islamism and its subset, the fight against Iran? Most carefully. We are not playing out a fictional tale in a best-selling book as we assess the reality of the world surrounding us.
Enjoyed this article? Feel free to share it using this link: https://rabbidaniellapin.com/war-is-not-going-away/
AAJC HAPPENING
For decades, Rabbi Daniel Lapin confidently reassured Jews about America’s future. Today, he is addressing a question he never expected to hear. Find out why in his letter Should Jews Leave America?
