“My thought can be summed up very well by the late Stephen Ambrose when he wrote in Citizen Soldiers about how in war for civilians the sight of soldiers meant trouble, EXCEPT for the sight of American soldiers. We were the first army in history (with the possible exception of the Tommies) to break that mold. That’s what sets us apart from the thugs we are fighting! That’s why America is different. We have lost much of that moral power due to the torture at AG and how “enemy combatants” are treated in general. I know that almost all of our troops are upholding our best traditions, but it doesn’t take much behavior like AG or shady decisions like the DoD has been making to cancel that out.
It makes me sad to know that the government knew that harsh measures were being taken with prisoners, and did not remember that we shouldnt do that. Our behavior should be dictated by our own standards, not based on who our enemy is or how he might behave.” More feedback on the Letters Page.
EMAIL OF THE DAY II: “I’m not going to sit here and, like the pseudo-conservatives of this country, complain about how hard it is to be even remotely conservative in a radical, Massachusetts college town. In short, it sucks. Regardless, I have managed to make somewhat of a name for myself by being the (and it’s not only self-proclaimed) ‘first intellectual teenage conservative Northampton has ever seen.’ After a couple years of trying, myself and a classmate succesfully ressurected our school newspaper. She’s a radical beyond even the ultra-liberal Northampton, MA status quo and, me a moderate (socially liberal, fiscally conservative and hawkish) usually classified as a staunch GOP guy, wanted to create a school newspaper that wasn’t a rag or an outfit for uninformed, teenage leftists to rant in. We became so attached to this paper that, for the final semester of high school, everything we did was in some way related to producing a thought-provoking weekly. As the paper expanded and became quite popular in our college town of 30,000, my co-editor/ressurector, Hannah and I shared deep intellectual discourse on local, state and national politics. In nine of our issues, we debated a different topic. The two of us taught each other alot but I am ecstatic over one thing that has come about from our friendship: we both read your blog. I turned her on to it and she now feels that there is at least one insightful conservative who is not a religious zealot. As a token of her appreciation Hannah’s graduation gift to me was – yup you guessed it – a donation to Andrewsullivan.com in my name. My first year at college will be filled with updates and special features from the Daily Dish. I hope you’ll run this letter so that people out there know that honest, intellectual and respectful discourse still exists even if it is only amongst a 17 and 18 year old. Running this letter is also a terrific plug for the importance of donating to the dish.” And so it is. I haven’t run a pledge drive this year because I’m unsure of how long I can keep this up, but you can help keep this blog alive by donating here.
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