![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I saw a truck yesterday with a sign on the back... an American flag with some text, which (approximately) said "Support our troops. No aid or comfort to the enemy".
The Enemy? If the person who designed that sign really thinks there is a group of people who are so distinctly the enemy that they don't even need to specify who those people are, do they really believe anyone would need to be told not to give aid and comfort to those people? Who exactly do they think the enemy is? It boggles me, the world-view the person who created that sign must have had (as well as the people who put such signs on their vehicles).
And it makes me wonder, if I was desperately looking for a job, and was hired to drive a vehicle, but then found out that the vehicle had some such disturbing sign on it like that, what I would do...
.
"Support our troops". That sign is on so many vehicles. In a way, that message by itself doesn't bother me as much. Because, yes, American troops are just people, like any other people, stuck doing difficult things which they might not even want to be doing, and they need support just like everyone else does. And maybe that's what the people (friends and family of troops, etc.) who display those signs mean to imply.
But the blind patriotism that slogan can also seem to imply does bother me. Our troops are just following orders. Do the people who use that slogan want us to support our troops, no matter what orders they are following? Do they not question those orders? Do they not question the people in charge, who are giving those orders? Do they not care what kind of a war those leaders start, or why? Do they really have such an us-versus-them mentality, in that everyone on "our side" is good, no matter what they do, just by virtue of being "on our side", and everyone on the "other side" is bad?
Reminds me a bit of the pep-rallies when I was in high-school. Why were we supposed to be cheering our team so much, and jeering the opposing team, just because they were our opponents in the game? Sure, those were just games, and supporting one side of a game was supposed to be part of the fun, and why not support the side your school's team was on. But I never could understand that mentality, that "we are better than you, just because we are us and not you".
The Enemy? If the person who designed that sign really thinks there is a group of people who are so distinctly the enemy that they don't even need to specify who those people are, do they really believe anyone would need to be told not to give aid and comfort to those people? Who exactly do they think the enemy is? It boggles me, the world-view the person who created that sign must have had (as well as the people who put such signs on their vehicles).
And it makes me wonder, if I was desperately looking for a job, and was hired to drive a vehicle, but then found out that the vehicle had some such disturbing sign on it like that, what I would do...
.
"Support our troops". That sign is on so many vehicles. In a way, that message by itself doesn't bother me as much. Because, yes, American troops are just people, like any other people, stuck doing difficult things which they might not even want to be doing, and they need support just like everyone else does. And maybe that's what the people (friends and family of troops, etc.) who display those signs mean to imply.
But the blind patriotism that slogan can also seem to imply does bother me. Our troops are just following orders. Do the people who use that slogan want us to support our troops, no matter what orders they are following? Do they not question those orders? Do they not question the people in charge, who are giving those orders? Do they not care what kind of a war those leaders start, or why? Do they really have such an us-versus-them mentality, in that everyone on "our side" is good, no matter what they do, just by virtue of being "on our side", and everyone on the "other side" is bad?
Reminds me a bit of the pep-rallies when I was in high-school. Why were we supposed to be cheering our team so much, and jeering the opposing team, just because they were our opponents in the game? Sure, those were just games, and supporting one side of a game was supposed to be part of the fun, and why not support the side your school's team was on. But I never could understand that mentality, that "we are better than you, just because we are us and not you".