Our Country is 236 years old. Of those 236 years we have been in a war of one kind or another or some kind of military action for a total of 165 years and still counting.
In case you think my count is off here is the history:
War of Independence 1775-1783
Northwest Indian War 1785-1795
Quasi-War 1798-1800
Barbary Wars 1801-1815
War of 1812 1812-1815
1st Seminole War 1817-1818
2nd Seminole War 1835-1842
Mexican-American War 1846-1848
3rd Seminole War 1855-1858
Civil War 1861-1865
Indian Wars 1865-1898
Spanish-American War 1898
Philippine War 1898-1902
Boxer Rebellion 1900-1901
Mexican Revolution 1914-1919
Haiti Occupation 1915-1934
World War 1 1917-1918
World War 2 1941-1945
Korean War 1950-1953
Vietnam War 1964-1973
El Salvador 1980-1992
Beirut 1982-1984
Persian Gulf "Support" 1987-1988
Invasion of Grenada 1983
Invasion of Panama 1989
Persian Gulf War 1991
Somalia 1992-1993
Bosnia 1995
Afghanistan 2002-2011
Iraq 2003-2011
1, 317, 348 Americans have died in these 30 conflicts. I could not find reliable figures for the number of people who were causalities at our hands, but suffice it to say I am sure it is far greater than 1.3 million.
Just since 1976 the United States have executed 3, 260 of its citizens.
Killing people seems to be what we do best. We glorify killing, we put it up in the bright lights of Hollywood, we sprinkle it all through our theology and we justify it as “free speech”. We call a movie with two people “making love” porn and call it immoral. We make movies showing people being blown to bits and we give them Academy Awards.
So has our political speech become so violent as to have played a part in what happen in Tucson last week? I think if one reads the list the answer is clearly NO. It is simply who we are as a society.
So there is the truth in black and white for all to see. Say what you will, but we are far better at just eliminating those who disagree with us rather than finding a way to live together in our diversity.
However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t time to take a second look at how we talk, how we think, how we live and how we relate to others.
Mr. Ira Leonard is a professor of history at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Ct. and in an essay entitled; “Are We a Peace-Loving Country or a Violent One?” sums it up rather accurately when he writes:
"The reality is that war -- whether on a large or small scale -- and domestic violence have been ever-present features of American life and culture from this country's earliest days almost 400 years ago, though this is not taught in American schools and textbooks. Violence, in varying forms, according to the leading historian of the subject, Richard Maxwell Brown, 'has accompanied virtually every stage and aspect of our national experience,' and is 'part of our unacknowledged (underground) value structure.' Indeed, 'repeated episodes of violence going far back into our colonial past have imprinted upon our citizens a propensity to violence.'"
"Thus, America demonstrated a national predilection for war and domestic violence long before the 9/11 attacks, but its leaders and intellectuals through most of the last century cultivated the national self-image, a myth, of America as a moral, "peace-loving" nation which the American population seems unquestioningly to have embraced.
"Despite the national, peace-loving self-image, American patriotism has usually been expressed in military and even militaristic terms. No less than seven presidents owed their election chiefly to their military careers (George Washington, 1789, Andrew Jackson, 1828, William Henry Harrison, 1840, Zachary Taylor, 1848, Ulysses S. Grant, 1868, Theodore Roosevelt, 1898, and Dwight David Eisenhower, 1952) while others, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, for example, capitalized upon their military records to become presidents, and countless others at both federal and state levels made a great deal of their war or military records.”
How sad is that we have become so accustom to violence it only shocks us occasionally.
What is really sad about all this is it does not account for all the murders committed in this country. It does not account for all the people who die way to early because of a lack of medical care, lack of mental health services, safe housing or enough proper food to eat.
It does not account for the countless number of people who are beaten to within an inch of their lives or killed because of the color of their skin, religious beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any one that does not fit those in power belief system.
My friends, read those numbers again; try to wrap your mind around the fact that we live in a world that is far more interested and invested in killing you. We say we honor life but when given the opportunity to do that, we miss the mark not just a little but by a lot
"The reality is that war -- whether on a large or small scale -- and domestic violence have been ever-present features of American life and culture from this country's earliest days almost 400 years ago, though this is not taught in American schools and textbooks. Violence, in varying forms, according to the leading historian of the subject, Richard Maxwell Brown, 'has accompanied virtually every stage and aspect of our national experience,' and is 'part of our unacknowledged (underground) value structure.' Indeed, 'repeated episodes of violence going far back into our colonial past have imprinted upon our citizens a propensity to violence.'"
"Thus, America demonstrated a national predilection for war and domestic violence long before the 9/11 attacks, but its leaders and intellectuals through most of the last century cultivated the national self-image, a myth, of America as a moral, "peace-loving" nation which the American population seems unquestioningly to have embraced.
"Despite the national, peace-loving self-image, American patriotism has usually been expressed in military and even militaristic terms. No less than seven presidents owed their election chiefly to their military careers (George Washington, 1789, Andrew Jackson, 1828, William Henry Harrison, 1840, Zachary Taylor, 1848, Ulysses S. Grant, 1868, Theodore Roosevelt, 1898, and Dwight David Eisenhower, 1952) while others, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, for example, capitalized upon their military records to become presidents, and countless others at both federal and state levels made a great deal of their war or military records.”
How sad is that we have become so accustom to violence it only shocks us occasionally.
What is really sad about all this is it does not account for all the murders committed in this country. It does not account for all the people who die way to early because of a lack of medical care, lack of mental health services, safe housing or enough proper food to eat.
It does not account for the countless number of people who are beaten to within an inch of their lives or killed because of the color of their skin, religious beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any one that does not fit those in power belief system.
My friends, read those numbers again; try to wrap your mind around the fact that we live in a world that is far more interested and invested in killing you. We say we honor life but when given the opportunity to do that, we miss the mark not just a little but by a lot
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