Our lord and master, the military

We live in a militarized country that is rapidly losing any recollection of its genuinely civilian past. I've actually heard people claim that not only does the military protect our freedoms, but that our freedoms arise from the military, that is, we are free because we have a military that creates, preserves, and protects our freedom. The Hohenzollern military autocrats of Prussia must be turning over in their graves in delight!

I was recently on a Southwest flight on which two army guys were passengers. The steward assigned to give that perfunctory "thank you for flying with us, please fly with us again real soon" speech you always hear just before landing decided to add a little talk extolling the virtues of the American military, the two army guys and their buddies-in-arms, and the whole idea of that we should be grateful to our military which keeps us free because if we travelled around the world we'd find lots of unfree countries (although the steward failed to point out that these unfree countries would also be military dictatorships). After the speech, passengers burst into a round of applause--except for me. Unpatriotic me just sat quietly in my seat wondering how soon these public appreciations of the military would actually be required by law, not merely inflicted upon me by a gushing waiter while I was trapped inside the fuselage of a passenger jet.

We owe no debt to the military, but we owe lots of debt because of the military. Trillions of dollars of debt, and that debt keeps growing every year. Our founding fathers created a civilian government under law; law creates, defines, protects, and preserves our civil freedoms. The founding fathers didn't create a military, and they didn't want one. They left the protection of the country in the hands of civilian militias--ordinary people, not star-spangled generals and admirals. They had no use for standing armies. They knew that militaries destroyed freedom because, unlike contemporary Americans, they knew history and had learned its painful lessons. That was then, this is now.

The militarization of America occurred in the total war of 1941-1945. Every part of America was subordinated to the military and its demands; that subordination persisted after the war in the form of the domination of the military-industrial complex. People like Harry Elmer Barnes and John T. Flynn warned their fellow citizens about this fundamental transformation of America and how a free republic would not survive. Few people listened to them. Everything they foresaw now exists. Few people nowadays see anything wrong because a militarized America is the only America they have ever known. The old free civilian republic is not even a memory.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, General George Washington put aside his rank, laid down his arms, and went home to Mount Vernon to resume his life as a gentleman farmer and businessman. He built no shrine to himself to commemorate his military exploits; nobody else did either. The citizens of 18th century America didn't think that the military was the highest, noblest calling of mankind. Free civilian life was the norm; anything military was an aberration. Nobody thought that because you once donned a uniform and marched in drill, you were then owed eternal gratitude, honor, esteem, and money.

Contemporary America has different values. In Bullhead City, Arizona, veterans believe that citizens owe them eternal gratitude in the form of an "eternal flame" shrine that will cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in gas bills each year plus eternal maintenance and upkeep costs. Apparently no civilian political leader dares point out the pointless waste of money for fear provoking veterans or for fear of being stigmatized as unpatriotic, which (of course) is defined as either opposing the wishes of the military to honor and fete itself or failing to show appropriate, ceaseless, fawning gratitude for the life-surrendering sacrifices that veterans now living comfortably in Bullhead City obviously did not make. Who in Bullhead City (or anywhere else in America) would dare say that?

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