Usually I'm pretty good at not shouting at the TV or the computer screen. This is good because studies show that consumer electronics don't respond well to negative energy. But, I swear, if I see someone else on TV refer to our troops as "children," I'm going to hurt someone. It enrages me to no end. I have known many members of the military from many different backgrounds and socio-economic groups. Most great people proud of their service -- a few were shady characters -- but I've yet to meet the poor half-wit duped into the military that the "we support the troops by trying to bring them home" crowd seems to think makes up the majority of our armed forces. I'm not saying there aren't one or two of them out there somewhere, but where do people get off painting our military with this broad, patronizing brush? I know the military is a smaller percentage of the population than it used to be, but what circles do liberals travel in that they somehow miss ever meeting an actual military man?

They're like babies with guns. As a nation, we need to put covers on the outlets.

So it's true these liberals don't hate members of the military any more than it's hatred of four year-olds that keeps society from allowing them to drive cars. They understand the limitations of these poor saps, and feel deeply they must save these people from the machinations of the evil, money-grubbing Republicans. Though liberals understand that police are expected to confront violent criminals and that firemen are expected to run into burning buildings, they seem baffled by the concept that people in the military would ever be placed in harm's way. "They're out in some desert being shot at and hearing loud noises and probably don't even know where they are! We have to get them home!" When liberals see images of our troops who wield assault rifles and are trained to kill, they can't help but think, "What poor, dumb babies!"

Part of this is projection, of course, but most of it seems to be sheer ignorance of the military -- or complete incomprehension of why we even have a national defense. When I pay my taxes every year, I comfort myself with the fact that a good portion of it will go towards killing people I don't particularly care for. To me, it's the one real job of the federal government. All the things liberals think are so important -- health care, welfare, regulations -- are things humanity has survived without for thousands of years, but national defense has been around since one tribe didn't like how another tribe was encroaching upon their hunting ground. I don't believe, though, that liberals even understand why we have a military these days. They think it's just something they have to fund to get Republicans to support their social programs. I bet most of them deep down believe that if we got rid of the outward sign of aggression that a standing army is, we would have no armed conflicts.

This is all why I think asking liberals to really support the troops is asking too much of them. They first have to understand the military, and for such a thing they would cease to be liberals -- i.e., whiny, useless people. Instead, we should aim for the smaller target of getting liberals to respect the members of our armed forces -- as you can both hate something and respect it to a certain extent. The ones who protest the war and call our troops "baby killers" and "murderers" not only hold an intellectually more tenable position, but they also allow our troops more dignity by implying they made a reasoned choice. In the view of those idiots, the members of our armed forces chose to kill lots of Iraqi civilians and chose to be part of Bush's evil war of aggression. Thus the liberals burning an American soldier in effigy are in fact the saner ones.

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