Henri Reynard Speaks Out

Are We Ready To Laugh At Ourselves Again?

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One of the things that I most love about the American People is their willingness to sit down and guffaw about their own foibles. Unfortunately that ability is in short supply lately. Others in the world are depicting us as foolish and vainglorious in common entertainments but our own parodies of our human foibles have been lacking lately. If you want to watch a country make fun of itself, the first group to watch in any nation are the culture police. These do not have to be people who are hired by anyone, in fact it is better if they are just volunteers. The Fashion Police are a good example, they are everywhere, but no one pays them for their essential work. They snicker to one another if a grandpa in short pants and socks wanders by, if they see him in that outfit with sandals outside the socks they have been known to burst into peals of laughter. They will not change the fashion sense of that particular grandpa, me, but they will add to the general amusement level of society.

Lately the culture police in this country have been occupied with more serious things than the fashion follies of the aging and the very young. They have been concerned with whether or not the individuals in our nation support the war and defining the patriotism of their contemporaries by whether or not they support the Commander In Chief (CIC). Now the CIC happens to be President too and that is a political office, or at least it still was the last time I checked. In our Democracy politicians are always fair game. I can amuse myself by depicting our President as a babbling buffoon in public and there are no rules of conduct that I have broken other than civility, and that only slightly. The promise and threat of patriotism defined by support for any political office holder is that that person will then stand outside the critical flow of scrutiny so important to our survival as a democracy. Witness the lack of criticism of Saddam before the fall of Baghdad. Or, for another example, examine the lack of criticism of the leadership in North Korea, by any of the hungry citizens of that nation. Should we emulate them more now that we are more dedicated to freeing people from oppression? I should think not but the mood of this nation seems to point the other direction.

Our Patriotism Police are everywhere today. They are using sharp glances, sharp words and other less subtle weapons to enforce their values on those of us who believe that this Emperor has less clothes than most. I for one find that interesting enough to tweak them whenever they are around and thus far none of them has erupted at me verbally or otherwise. On the other hand one of these patriotic heroes threw a handful of bolts into the face of a young girl protesting the war after charging toward her with his pickup. The bolts injured her badly; the pickup truck only scared her. I make no effort to hide my opinions about political matters; that is my right and even my duty as a citizen. I refused my impulses to critique our President during the first year after the sad events of 9/11, and now I regret it. I will not do that again, ever, for any President that I feel is leading us astray. That he is CIC is always beside the point. Our military personnel deserve our support when we send them off on an adventure that can get them killed. I will hang a thousand yellow ribbons on the trees on the White House lawn if it will get our troops home sooner and keep them there longer. I will never concede that our CIC was anything but wrong to send them there in the first place.

Are we going to do better in our negotiations for peace between Israel and Palestine because Saddam is gone? That is an open question, I hope we do, that conflict needs a resolution. I think it is unlikely but I hope I am wrong. Will North Korea cave in to our demands regarding their development of Nuclear Weapons (anything that can kill you should be capitalized)? Not very likely, they have long played the brinkmanship role in our conflicts in Asia. (I could have said, "The Orient", but I am being uncommonly politically correct today.) I truly wish the world worked that way, you beat up one bully and the next one runs away. Unfortunately I have had enough bruised knuckles and blackened eyes to know that tactic seldom works. Bullies aren't smart enough to study history, and they believe that their strength is the strength of ten because God or whatever they may worship is on their side.

"Patriotism is the final refuge of scoundrels"; I may not remember who first uttered those immortal words but I have had their veracity proved over and over again. I think our common sense in this nation is being challenged by our leadership's lack of the same element. In matters of life and death we all want to be led to safety, I'll take safety over chaos every time. Our current President is proving too ready to grasp the power derived from chaos and too unable to end it to suit me. Thus President, CIC or any other hat he may wear, I will keep opposing those things that he does which I disagree with. That makes me a patriot of a different kind than he, but not less of one. God bless and keep you, our benighted President, our troops and our protestors safe, now and always!