Public Service

[howeird]

On someone else's journal a couple of nitwits are arguing with me about McCain's record of public service, countering with the laughable claims that (a) military service isn't public service and (b) Obama left a lucrative career for one in public service. One of them whines about having given many months and dollars to get Obama elected, and asked what I did, as if I supported either candidate, which I did not. For the record, though, I supported Chris Dodd for as long as he stayed in the race.

I am appalled that anyone would say enlisting in the military and risking death to defend one's country is not public service. Obviously these are people who have never put their lives on the line for anything. I've been there, most of the men of my generation have been there. I'm not a fan of the military, or of war or violence. I don't "support our troops" when they don't refuse to fight an illegal war or perform illegal acts. But whether you think John McCain is a hero or a poser, the fact is he enlisted voluntarily, he flew combat missions which put his life on the line, and was shot down and served 6 years in a Viet Cong prison camp as a result. Regardless of how shamefully you may think he was treated there, that's 6 years of his life he is never getting back, and 6 years more than you wimps will ever sacrifice as a result of serving your country.

Obama left a job on Wall Street which may or may not have been lucrative. Junior brokers are a dime a dozen, and turnover is high in that high-pressure environment. In his first book he says he felt uncomfortable as a colored person in a white world, but he was there during the height of Affirmative Action and a general opening up of the finance community to people of color, so I don't really buy that story. Regardless, I would not compare his minor financial sacrifice of working as a small-time, not particularly successful, community development worker with disinterested church groups to McCain's volunteering to get into a uniform and dodge bullets for a living. Or working in the US Congress for 27 years.

Both men have their good and bad. What I hate most about the cretins is they want to paint their hero as all good and his opponent as all bad. Both men have done heroic and despicable things during their lives, and we owe it to them and ourselves to laud the good while acknowledging the bad.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I LIKE John McCain, as a person. I tend to disagree with him politically, and his rather poor choice of VP undoubtedly cost him any chance he had of winning the election, but yes, he did serve our country, I do honor that service, and he would have been a far better president than the previous occupant. And yeah, I supported Obama and voted for him in spite of (and in full awareness of) his numerous weaknesses, chiefest of which (for me) is being a namby-pamby about universal health care.