I agree that it’s not generally oppressive to our freedom, but our military has definitely been used to abet the oppression of others.
Let me ask, as a bit of a tangent – the U.S. soldiers in Iraq are often said to be “defending our freedom.” Do you agree with that formulation?
Only in the abstract, much as any soldier does in general. For their immediate task they are defending American interests, which are quite important, but don’t sound so nice in speeches.
Actually, I would argue just the opposite – they’re harming American interests. The world in general is much more hostile to America and American interests than it was before the war, and our enemies – Iran and Russia, for example – have been emboldened. The risk of a wider regional war is much stronger now than it was before the war.
All those things need to be thrown onto the ledger – if the military has power to protect freedom and interests, it also has the power to imperil them. And you’ll never see that in a sound bite like the one cited by the OP.
I think it’s a false dichotomy, what the quote in the OP said. In order to be truly free, we need the military AND the journalists, activists, poets, and protestors.
Because if the military are the watchmen who safeguard our security and freedoms, the journalists, activists, poets, and protestors who watch those watchmen and disseminate those freedoms.
The one cannot do its duty properly without the other.
You know, the military has defended our freedom every time we have asked them to. Unfortunately, we have more often asked them to defend our economic interests, and our political aspirations. They do that too, if you happen to be Commander in Chief.
Tris
Well, they’re defending American interests as determined by Congress and the Commander in Chief. They might not actually be our best interests, as it turns out, but in our interest–on our behalf–nonetheless.
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One is reminded of the famous quote by US Marine Major General Smedley Butler:
All of Europe? Kosovo called and want to kick you in your shins.
And who’s to say that Canada, Austalia and New Zealand would be free with out us setting the pace? Japan sure as heck wasn’t until some armed force forced them into unconditional surrender and occupied them until the people had a nice democracy going there.
Of course, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it was an armed force – their own – that got them into the pickle in the first place.
I think this point can hardly be overemphasized. Of the people throughout history who have been denied freedom, the vast majority have been denied freedom by their own rulers, with military force as one of the primary instruments of oppression. Even when soldiers have fought for their countrymen against external invaders they have usually not been fighting for their countrymen’s freedom, but rather for their countrymen’s natural right to be oppressed by their own government instead of their neighbours’.
It is quite correct to say that it is we the people who defend our own freedom by using our democratic systems to require our governments to respect it. Military forces are instruments wielded by those with political power. In our Western democracies we have largely stripped those politicians of the power to infringe on the freedom of citizens, thanks to a long line of revolutionaries and reformers, very few of whom were soldiers (and if they were, they were traitorous scum rebelling against their rightful rulers, like that Washington fellow). However, we will only keep that repressive power out of the hands of politicians if we continue to be vigilant against abuses, and the protesters and journalists can be quite instrumental in that regard.
None of this should be read in any way as a slight against soldiers, who absolutely do defend (often by their mere existence) national security, which in spite of not being equivalent to freedom is nothing to be scorned.
But the poem doesn’t extend the same courtesy to the poet, et al. It denies their contributions to the freedoms we enjoy in society.
Let’s take a quick quiz. Give yourself one point if the answer is the military and zero is not.
Who got women the right to vote?
Who ended segregation and legal discrimination against blacks?
Who ended an unpopular war?
Who has gotten homosexuality more (but unfortunately not completely) acceptable?
I’m sure that we could find a myriad of examples, but the point is that our freedoms are not won by the military. Even if you look at the Revolutionary War and the founding of the USA, our military did not give us the Bill of Rights. The Continental Army did not drop fully formed out of the sky. The army was formed by a populous inspired into action by agitators (which the original glurge used instead of campus organizers) and then the constitution and Bill of Rights were the products of the minds of the poets, the philosophers, agitators and thinkers.
No, the rhetoric in the OP is false. I’m not saying that the military doesn’t contribute at all, but the contributions from the others cannot be dismissed like this. It is false.
When I joined the army I took an oath to defend the US against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It didn’t occur to me that those with power to command the army could be the worst enemy of all.
Of course I was only 19.
The military’s function is to defend the status quo.
I forgot to point out that the founding fathers didn’t view these rights as luxuries but as self-evident truths.
The quote is offensive and misguided. As others have said, the intent of the quote seems to be as much to insult certain civilian professions most often associated with liberal political views as to confer honor upon the service of the armed forces. The fact is, after the first 100 years of our nation’s existence, the liberties of American citizens as a whole have never truly been jeapordized by direct military action. (I disagree with those who discount teh Indian Wars, though – the fact that ours were the initial territorial incursions does not negate the truth that the lives and liberties of American citizens were absolutely being defended by the US Army in the frontier.)
The quote in question seems to be more informed by Jack Nicholsion in A Few Good Men than by any studied understanding of American history, political science, or ethics. I feel sorry for teh speaker, actually; it is a shallow pride that can only be maintained at the expense of others.
And surprising from a Marine. They usually feel it’s sufficient to feel proud at the expense of soldiers and sailors.
I think that the OP’s question has to be answered beyond the scenarios in which there is a threat of actual invasion. Even if we have largely deployed the military on other continents, a number of those wars have had a direct bearing on our freedoms. The ability to trade and travel freely have had an enormous impact on this country, and limiting that would necessarily have consequences for our internal policies. Countries that feel under constant threat tend to have strong counter-espionage forces that look for any evidence of internal threats. Even here the fear of insurgency, Communism, and terrorism have had major impacts on personal freedoms - the Japanese internment camps, McCarthyism, and the current debates over security vs. civil liberties are all consequences of fear of external threat. Although these are not issues that the military deals with directly, removal of the external threat resulted in those practices being halted (we’ll have to wait and see about the terrorism threat). The removal of those external threats has often been carried out to a greater or lesser extent by the military.
So, the bottom line from my perspective is that the military does play a significant role in defending our freedoms, but it’s (thankfully, given that I am glad we’re not having to repel invasions) less direct that might be otherwise though. That’s not to say that they are not used for other, more mercenary purposes. In fact, I’d say that the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World Wars I and II were pretty much it in terms of “freedom defense.” Those who are more learned in history would probably add more.
I was somewhat surprised that there were so few posts to name the Civil War as a military action to defend freedom, given that was pretty much the only way for those held in slavery to gain any freedom.
I think the people who are supporting this quote may have a different view of the interplay of institutions than I do.
Our military has evolved in such a way as to protect our freedoms. But it didn’t evolve in a vaccuum. If we didn’t have a functional court system, how would soldiers be able to enforce their contracts with the government? If we didn’t have a functional legislature, what would stop a general from absconding with military pay to a Swiss bank account? Without all the other institutions that make up our country, we’d end up with an army of mercenaries, and an army of mercenaries is a hit-or-miss proposition for defense.