So it's about courage is it?

I don't know if you have noticed, but this whole campaign has revolved around courage. From the day Howard Dean took on the feckless Democratic establishment, through John Kerry's military-drenched convention, through McCain's and Giuliani's speeches last night, the key questions of this race have been: Who has political courage? Who's willing to fight? Who has the resolve to lead in times of war?



From David Brooks' column in the New York Times on August 31, 2004.





Tuesday, David Brooks devoted his New York Times column to the idea that this entire election is about courage and resolve. And while he was coy about his own conclusion regarding the question, we know enough of Brooks to know that he would favor Bush in a courage and resolve contest.



To allow the Republicans to frame the key issues as "courage and resolve" would seem a bit troublesome on the surface. However, the lines between courage and foolhardiness on the one hand and resolve and hardheadedness on the other may, in fact, be the key questions the voters will resolve in November. And, viewed this way, I see trouble ahead for George W. Bush and the neoconservative movement that so aggressively sold and prosecuted the war in Iraq.



They exploit what they perceive as a division between those who question the war and those whose sons and daughters go bravely into battle for their country. Their miscalculation on this issue may prove to be the final mistake and undoing of a morally vacant administration.



There is not an American alive who does not treasure above all gifts the generosity of spirit and the courage that go into the decision to put one's life at the service of a democratic nation. There is not one of us who does not grieve the loss of these young lives, as they perceive them to be, in our service. Yet politicians exploit that sacrifice for selfish ends when they challenge those who disagree with their policies as somehow ungrateful to those who sacrifice for our freedom.



We hear it often and I find it a very troubling statement--the idea that "they" sacrifice for "our" freedom. Itshould offend a democratic people to the very core.



In a democracy, the decision to go to war should be a commitment that we are willing sacrifice for our freedom. The decision to go to war should not be lightly taken without the full involvement of the legislative branch of government according to the process laid out in the constitution. That process seems designed to at least minimize the possibility that warmaking would ever become an instrument of policy that would be undertaken without the full support and commitment of the people. If it is worth risking our lives for, it is worth making the declaration of war according to the very clear requirement of the constitution.



This war is fought by "other people's children" and mercenary corporations on foreign soil without the administration's asking so much as an increase in the taxes we pay. We hide from the the terrible truth of death and destruction while we heap the platitudes of praise on the brave soldiers, sailors and marines who valiantly give their lives for--so they are told--our freedom. I would submit that, in a democracy, any war that does not strive to share sacrifice equally cannot be construed as a war in defense of democracy. It may well defend the people within the political boundaries that once lived by a democratic spirit. But it has ceased to live according to the fundamental principles of democracy that the war purports to defend.



And there is another way of looking at courage, too. Every American exercises courage with the daily insistence upon living free. It is sometimes easier to yield in the face of fear, to quit our daily routines, to accept less freedom than our spirits require simply because there is danger in the world.



Americans do two things in the face of danger:



they continue to be free with passionate disregard of the willful efforts to frighten them into submission

they do what is necessary and within their ability to contribute to efforts to lessen the danger.





That does not mean striking out at some general class of "evildoers". An intelligent response profits from a more sophisticated view of the world and the reasons underlying the dangers we face. Americans do not shrink from the need to confront evil. It is as much in our generation to face down dictators and terrorists as it was in the generation that confronted tyranny and inhumanity in the last century. But true courage requires that we act with intelligence and in a spirit of shared sacrifice. In short, true courage requires that we remain true to our democratic principles.



A democracy in which "they" are allowed to sacrifice for "us" is a democracy already in decline and on the road to defeat. There is still time to turn this democracy around by putting true courage in the White House again, this time in the person of John Kerry, a man who has seen fit to put himself at his nation's service like the men and women who serve in Iraq and who, having seen war, is passionate in his pursuit of other means of resolving international problems.



The way of peace is the way of courage. It is no less so today than it was twenty centuries ago when Jesus of Nazareth stood the world of power on its head with a simple commitment to peace and justice as the way to the kingdom of God. You would think it would have some appeal to those in power today. It is, after all, a faith based initiative.