Wizer OneLiner #4

My right to display the Ten Commandments anywhere I want does not conflict with your right to ignore it.

Vietnam

"Goooooooood morning Vietnam! It's 0600 hours. What does the "O" stand for? O my God, it's early!" -- Adrian Cronauer

"Our power, therefore, is a very vital shield. If we are driven from the field in Viet-Nam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise, or in American protection." -- Lyndon B. Johnson

"I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service. " -- John F. Kerry

"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam. " -- Marshall McLuhan

"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas." -- Ronald Reagan

I've often wondered why I never came to terms with opposition to this war. At that time in my life, I was able to sympathize with both sides of most issues. I never quite understood the arguments of people who thought we should get out of Vietnam. I remember standing around during some poorly organized protests, watching my classmates scream out at the uninterested and merely annoyed. I simply could not buy the anti-war rationale (...that killing bad guys makes you bad). So, I never heard a good argument against the war. Still haven't. Sure, war was hell. It also seemed necessary, given that not all the bad guys had surrendered yet.

Television made a big deal about college campus riots and demonstrations of young people. I surely would not have advocated that political leaders seriously listen to most of my classmates. Heck, these kids had no perspective whatsoever, no wisdom in the matter, and no basis for claiming either. The fact that TV covered it at all seemed odd at the time. The fact that the politicians listened reflects poorly on their own wisdom.

As to how the war was conducted, well that was the real crime. By restraining full scale military operations, we made every one of our boys a sitting duck. By pulling out, we allowed the slaughter of the entire South Vietnamese Army and spawned the Khmer Rouge and it's murder of 1.7 million people.

Thank God we don't do wars like that any more.

Magnet "Ribbons"

"Red is the AIDS ribbon, green is something else, and purple something else. Every color in the spectrum has been taken." -- Rush Limbaugh

Rush has a rant in which he decries the practice of wearing ribbons as a symbol of caring for something. His problem is not the caring itself, but the ribbon. It basically says "look at me. I care about AIDS/Troops/Pope John Paul/Domestic Violence/Hunger" or anything else someone will make a ribbon for "more than you do" . His point is that wearing the ribbon doesn't mean that you care more, and certainly doesn't mean that you do any more for that particular cause.

I have to agree with that, and I will take it a step further. Magnet Ribbons. Magnet Ribbons are ubiquitous now. I've seen a number of vehicles with 3 or more different magnet ribbons, most of which are large enough to be seen, but with text placed and sized so that nobody can see what's written on them. I suppose we are supposed to know the color code, but to me these things say "Look at me. I care about something". So what? I suppose you deserve a medal (or a ribbon...?) for that.

Look at http://www.wholesalecentral.com/accessoriespalace/store.cfm?event=showcatalog&catid=52706. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Betcha didn't know there were that many different ribbons for sale, did you?

I think there's something really pathetic about declaring your commitment to something by using a removeable sign.

Now, since everybody's got a ribbon, the messages are all much weaker. Other drivers don't believe in your cause, and they don't care that you do.