Loyalty is not a virtue

What is it to be loyal? According to Merriam Webster, to be "loyal" is to be

1 : unswerving in allegiance: as a: faithful in allegiance to one's lawful sovereign or government b: faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due c: faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.
I don't have a problem with this definition. I do object, however, that "loyalty" has been given a free pass in modern American culture, as though loyalty is always a good thing. In particular, the mass media has bought into this linguistic sleight-of-hand: according to the mainstream media, it is always a good thing to be "loyal." Loyalty is undoubtedly a virtue when we are dealing with pet dogs. We like our dogs to be loyal. We like our dogs to do what we tell them to do. The loyalty of a human being is not necessarily a good thing, however. Loyalty is a matter of committing oneself to a person, to a group of people or to a cause. But people and causes can be either praiseworthy or despicable (or something in between). If a social cause to which I am loyal is that all babies should have basic medical care, loyalty to such a cause would be a good thing. If my idea is that we should all give homage to Hitler, loyalty to this cause would be a horrible idea. Therefore, how can it be said that loyalty is per se a good thing unless one first examines the merit of the person(s) or clause(s) to which a person is being loyal? [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingLoyalty is not a virtue

Want to convey your political message on the cheap?

The inventive minds at freeway blogger have one solution: With some ordinary cardboard (taken from big box retailers' dumpsters, of course), some poster paint, and a bungee cord, you too can reach a captive audience of thousands in the span of a few minutes. In the age of corporately owned…

Continue ReadingWant to convey your political message on the cheap?

Bush tells us he is “winning the war on terrorism.” I wonder what he considers losing.

Just when we thought the chaos in Iraq was about as bad as it could be, darned if the violence in Baghdad hasn't managed to increase by 40% in just the past week: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060720/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Continue ReadingBush tells us he is “winning the war on terrorism.” I wonder what he considers losing.

The magnitude and the music make war AOK

My government’s violent occupation of Iraq has not flustered me nearly as much as the nonchalance of half of America.  Why are so many Americans utterly complacent about the wretched and rampant killing going on in our names?  Is it possible that we have become confused and seduced by the magnitude of the killings and by the music?  Allow me to explain.

First, the magnitude.  Stalin’s well-cited quote comes to mind: “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.”  Perhaps the immoral nature of Bush’s aggression would be clearer had Bush caused the death of only one man.  Imagine this hypothetical: 

President Bush looks out the window of the oval office and sees a man wearing a backpack walking down the sidewalk.  In a dry-drunkish paranoid moment, Bush tells his security officers that the man walking down the sidewalk has nuclear weapons grade aluminum tubes in his backpack and orders his guards to capture “that terrorist.”  While capturing the man with the backpack (it turns out to be empty), a U.S soldier is accidentally shot by friendly fire of a fellow soldier.

It is later disclosed that, one minute before giving his order to capture the man, a former ambassador had advised Bush the man wearing the backpack had just been searched and that he was not carrying anything dangerous.  Then it came out that Bush and his highest advisers had intentionally blown the cover of a CIA agent to discredit the former

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Continue ReadingThe magnitude and the music make war AOK