I was going to start the week with a discussion of natural law - something that is somewhat new to me (it is not used in the social sciences) and is used by people in religion, as well as medical ethics specialists, to judge what is moral and good from what is not. However, this being Monday, I am going to wait and instead mention a somewhat old movie that I saw for the first time last night, "A Few Good Men."
You might recall that this is the movie where Jack Nicholson, who plays the guilty, nasty-as-hell Colonel, snarls, "You can't handle the truth!" This line is more than theatrics - it encapsulates one side of the central argument in the movie: How far should we go to protect ourselves? And how alien must our military be from domestic society to serve as an effective force in that protective role?
As Hollywood would have it, we should not go far at all: the accused corporal, once judged innocent of manslaughter charges, is forced to accept his dishonorable discharge from the Marines for 'actions unbecoming a US service man.' To this he submits, saying, "it's true. We should have done our best to protect the weak."
Said as a general statement, this might be true; but said as a marine of another marine, it is, I believe, definitely wrong. The nasty colonel tell us that we need them (the tough marines) "on the wall, " protecting us from the bad guys, and that to do this, they must be tougher and more relentless and fearless than the opponents. And he is right. To allow, in this case, a marine to continue on with his group even though he repeatedly fails physical challenges, is repeatedly late and sloppy, and later goes above his chain of command to complain of a single shot fired at Guantanamo proves that he is a liability to the group, hindering their highest ability to function as a fighting unit. The colonel, in effect, is right about this, and the film writers wrong. The colonel, we could say, was cowardly in not admitting his hand in the affair immediately, but he was right about the fighting force. They require different standards.
The same can be said of the current military, which is being forced to bow to a certain pinky-fingered etiquette now found in the political world, but that avoids the greater issue: When, if ever, is it moral to be an aggressor? To kill?
Touching lightly on natural law, the Catholic church claims that it is right to use measured violence when one person, or one nation, is immediately threatened by another (in other words, in immediate self-defense). As hated as Pope John-Paul was by the left, he did proclaim against the second Iraq war (W. Bush), calling it a war not of protection but of choice. But will this suffice? There are various military stratagems, one of which is to attack a probable foe before he can effectively attack you - which is the lesson of Munich. Further, one must be ready for an attack, or to attack before being attacked, at any moment - and therefore, there is a need for a fighting force to be in place even when no high threat is currently foreseeable. And this fighting force must be aggressive and capable of being ruthless - which would not include shielding the "weak" among them.
By extension, one might see this readiness as a form of self-defense still covered by Vatican natural law, albeit from a strategic perspective. I believe it is. But the question raised by some in our civil society, a society that does not feel threatened by violence (as is the case now in America), is: shouldn't we turn the other cheek? Even the atheists and the non-Christians among them will often use the Gospels to counter the military mentality. Shouldn't we all just try to get alone, and love the other as ourselves? When asked for our tunic, shouldn't we also offer our cloak? In other words, shouldn't we simply relent to the opposition rather than use violence?
Of course, most on the left do not mean this even if they think they do. They would fight against imposed tyranny just as they would fight the man who was raping their daughter. And this is the clash we all have to face - and what the movie brought to the fore before descending into cliche: to what degree do we go with our ethics? Do we compromise, as the Church as a real-world entity has done, or do we become other-worldly entities unto ourselves? Would you, for instance, stand by while a biker gang raped your daughter? Or would you instead argue for them to stop? Would you find a big stick and fight them? Or would you come prepared, packing a gun, ready beforehand to protect? And in what category would you want our military to fall - given, that is, that you would want a military at all? I do not pose these questions as straw men, for they have been raised by the best among us for centuries. How, in all honesty, would YOU have it? How far, that is, do we neglect the things of this world for the other? FK
You might recall that this is the movie where Jack Nicholson, who plays the guilty, nasty-as-hell Colonel, snarls, "You can't handle the truth!" This line is more than theatrics - it encapsulates one side of the central argument in the movie: How far should we go to protect ourselves? And how alien must our military be from domestic society to serve as an effective force in that protective role?
As Hollywood would have it, we should not go far at all: the accused corporal, once judged innocent of manslaughter charges, is forced to accept his dishonorable discharge from the Marines for 'actions unbecoming a US service man.' To this he submits, saying, "it's true. We should have done our best to protect the weak."
Said as a general statement, this might be true; but said as a marine of another marine, it is, I believe, definitely wrong. The nasty colonel tell us that we need them (the tough marines) "on the wall, " protecting us from the bad guys, and that to do this, they must be tougher and more relentless and fearless than the opponents. And he is right. To allow, in this case, a marine to continue on with his group even though he repeatedly fails physical challenges, is repeatedly late and sloppy, and later goes above his chain of command to complain of a single shot fired at Guantanamo proves that he is a liability to the group, hindering their highest ability to function as a fighting unit. The colonel, in effect, is right about this, and the film writers wrong. The colonel, we could say, was cowardly in not admitting his hand in the affair immediately, but he was right about the fighting force. They require different standards.
The same can be said of the current military, which is being forced to bow to a certain pinky-fingered etiquette now found in the political world, but that avoids the greater issue: When, if ever, is it moral to be an aggressor? To kill?
Touching lightly on natural law, the Catholic church claims that it is right to use measured violence when one person, or one nation, is immediately threatened by another (in other words, in immediate self-defense). As hated as Pope John-Paul was by the left, he did proclaim against the second Iraq war (W. Bush), calling it a war not of protection but of choice. But will this suffice? There are various military stratagems, one of which is to attack a probable foe before he can effectively attack you - which is the lesson of Munich. Further, one must be ready for an attack, or to attack before being attacked, at any moment - and therefore, there is a need for a fighting force to be in place even when no high threat is currently foreseeable. And this fighting force must be aggressive and capable of being ruthless - which would not include shielding the "weak" among them.
By extension, one might see this readiness as a form of self-defense still covered by Vatican natural law, albeit from a strategic perspective. I believe it is. But the question raised by some in our civil society, a society that does not feel threatened by violence (as is the case now in America), is: shouldn't we turn the other cheek? Even the atheists and the non-Christians among them will often use the Gospels to counter the military mentality. Shouldn't we all just try to get alone, and love the other as ourselves? When asked for our tunic, shouldn't we also offer our cloak? In other words, shouldn't we simply relent to the opposition rather than use violence?
Of course, most on the left do not mean this even if they think they do. They would fight against imposed tyranny just as they would fight the man who was raping their daughter. And this is the clash we all have to face - and what the movie brought to the fore before descending into cliche: to what degree do we go with our ethics? Do we compromise, as the Church as a real-world entity has done, or do we become other-worldly entities unto ourselves? Would you, for instance, stand by while a biker gang raped your daughter? Or would you instead argue for them to stop? Would you find a big stick and fight them? Or would you come prepared, packing a gun, ready beforehand to protect? And in what category would you want our military to fall - given, that is, that you would want a military at all? I do not pose these questions as straw men, for they have been raised by the best among us for centuries. How, in all honesty, would YOU have it? How far, that is, do we neglect the things of this world for the other? FK
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