Dr. Forbush Thinks

When people hear the word bravery they often think of soldiers in combat. These men are brave because they put their lives on the line to do what they are ordered to do regardless of their personal opinions. If soldiers start to second guess their commander the organization of the unit would fall to pieces and no missions could be accomplished.  That is the simple nature of the military and that is the way it needs to be.

Democracy is not a military operation. I have to agree that using military strategy in politics will certainly organize your team and make things run more smoothly. Military tactics in a political fight can help you win your point and perhaps even a major issue. But, democracy is about people and their opinions.  The word democracy comes from the Greek word for people. The military on the other hand is organized in such a way that only the leaders have opinions and the followers need to trust that they know what they are doing.

So, when we think of bravery in a democracy we need to think about the actions that make the democracy work. Just like blind faith in the commander makes the military work, voicing an opinion makes a democracy work.

It is tempting to organize governments and political parties in a military fashion. This organization gives strength to the party or government. However, the more strength you give to the leadership the more power you take away from the people. Giving carte blanche to a leader requires blind faith and it also makes one feel as if they no longer need to be responsible. Surrendering your responsibility may feel like the easy thing to do, but it is the irresponsible thing to do.

This is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

When one recognizes that the leader has strayed from the righteous path of serving our country that one person needs to raise his voice and let the people know what he thinks. He needs to be brave and voice his opinion to whomever he thinks will listen. The risk for this is high. If you are a member of the leader’s party you may be shunned by the other followers. Your political support could dry up and your constituents could turn their collective backs on you. If that one person is a member of the general public the brave thing to do is to shout out from the mountaintops and declare that the emperor has no clothes.

These people exist and they have shown their faces in our times. Only the bravest of the brave rise to the top and find the strength to do this shouting on what seems like deaf ears.

One of our brave patriotic heroes is Senator John McCain. When the leadership of the Republican party was pushing through judicial appointments that some found to radical in their ideology the Democrats found power in numbers to prevent these few radicals from being appointed. The Republican solution was to change the rules to prevent the Democrats from filibustering. The Democrats said they would not give unanimous consent to anything if they did this. This would mean that there would need to be a roll call vote on everything, which would slow the Senate to a crawl. Each group thought they were right and they weren’t going to give an inch, until Senator McCain and his group of moderates were able to organize and prevent the catastrophe from happening.

Another of our brave patriotic heroes was Senator George Voinovich who stood against his party by objecting to the nomination of John Bolton to the UN diplomat post. In this case Senator Voinovich put even more on the line than Senator McCain. And, John Bolton was still sent to the UN. But putting that voice out there is a lonely thing to do, but in a democracy it is the brave thing to do.

So, all Americans should look at Cindy Sheehan and her stand against the administration and the war in Iraq. Her son was kill last April for a war that she never believed in. When she met with Bush in a group of parents of dead American soldiers president Bush told her that he would not use the deaths of these soldiers to play politics. However, in Cindy’s mind the president has done just that. So, she has decided to get the attention of the president once again. She is camped out in a ditch some distance from Crawford, Texas where the president is on vacation. She is asking to meet with him, but George W Bush doesn’t have the time while he is on vacation to meet with her. So, she sits and waits at what she calls “Camp Casey” which she named after her son.

Now, some of the supporters of the War in Iraq would argue that they are the brave ones supporting the president through thick and thin. Supporting the policy as we begin to see that it doesn’t work in the hope that one day it will work. They may call this bravery. But, I call that loyalty. Some may argue that loyalty is very important. To this I say - a dog can be loyal, but it takes a human to be brave!