On the Necessity of War

Well, here's a post I never thought I'd make.  On the necessity of WAR?!  My teenage self, marching in the street, would doubtless throw something at me. But check it out...

 I'm (of course) saluting the Veterans today, and thinking of you guys 'n gals that I've been lucky enough to talk with, as I do every year.  For a civilian, I've thought a lot about war, especially from a pacifistic perspective.  I've studied it, marched against it, watched videos about it, interviewed veteran friends, and generally viewed it as an unnecessary evil - a moral failure of the politicians that the soldier was subjected to.

    Veteran's day was a reminder to abolish the carnage, and outlaw the killing.  War would be over once we got the politics right, and voted in the Utopian state. (Oh boy.) Isn't this what every idealistic artist sings about?  Well, this year, I've been thinking about Force and Malevolence.  The latter exists, and surely would run rampant without the former (ESPECIALLY in any "utopian state", of which idea I firmly reject.)  There must be lines drawn, and a line is nothing without consequence.  

  Sure, there's much waste, political incompetence, and better answers to many situations, and many paths to Hell that are best avoided...But for the first Veteran's Day ever, as a chilly rain falls from a leaden sky, scattering brilliant leaves like young men dead on a foreign field...Not only am I thanking the Veterans for their service, but for their role as being the arbiters of saying "No" and meaning it, sometimes with the Ultimate Price.

   Perhaps that will be abstracted someday, and we won't be using bullets to make the point, and physical war will be antiquated, like duels, although I doubt it.  But the spirit of No will always, and should always, remain.  

Thank you for holding the line.