I love the scene in “O Brother, Where Art Thou” when Pete and Everett are arguing about who should be in charge and decide to take a vote.
Pete: Suits me. I’m voting for yours truly.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well I’m voting for yours truly too.
[Everett and Pete look at Delmar for the deciding vote]
Delmar O’Donnell: Okay… I’m with you fellas.
Delmar votes with both of them, though they disagree.
That’s how I feel about the split opinion among conservatives about the president’s decisive and swift action in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons on its own people.
Some say we should mind our own business and stop interfering in every fight. It seems like every time we get involved we only make things worse. A few rockets on an airfield escalates and suddenly there are grounds troops in a shooting war that turns into a quagmire that we can’t get out of resulting in a lot of body bags.
I’m with you fellas.
On the other hand, can we really stand by and watch a man use chemical weapons on women and children and do nothing? If I am walking down the street and see a man beating a woman behind a picket fence, do I walk on because he’s doing it in the privacy of his own yard and it’s none of my business? Many are saying that the president’s decisive action showed Assad and even Putin that they cannot act like thugs and tyrants in this region. For a man as widely hated as Trump is this action was very widely praised.
I’m with you fellas.
It’s an internal struggle. I don’t like to see us meddling in every internal conflict in every country around the world, but there seems to me to be a moral responsibility that attaches to having the military power we have. If we will not respond to the gassing of innocent civilians what will we respond to? Doesn’t our military power carry at least some obligation to interfere when bullies go a step too far?
It’s a tough call, but I guess for me in this case I’m with the president. I would hate to see us send ground troops in but bombing Assad’s military infrastructure seems a measured and appropriate response.
A moral response.
What say you?
