Don't demonize Joel Stein, an honest leftist

Columnist Joel Stein wrote a column in the L.A. Times yesterday entitled "Warriors and Wusses"
Warriors and wusses - Los Angeles Times

It started out with these words:

'I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.'

Mr. Stein goes on to make various vacuous remarks about the military...which he now admits he knows nothing about.Radio Blogger

But the essential core of his piece deserves to be commended. It's not often one finds an honest Leftist willing to say these sort of things straight out.

`... I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.'

`..The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.'

`...when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse.'

I won't waste time dealing with Stein's obvious view of America, the American military or his obviously clueless leftist beliefs. I will simply commend him for being honest enough to articulate the beliefs of himself and his peers...most of whom are just as unpatriotic and disloyal as he but lack the fortitude to admit it.