A Simple Question for John McCain

Hi, Senator McCain (if that’s your REAL job).

Yesterday, a fellow blogger recommended that I take this graduate student’s survey, so I did. I’m nearly apologetic to report to you, sir, that my responses in regards to you and your campaign were not complimentary. In the course of taking that survey, I was chagrined to realize that, frankly, you scare me.

Now, as a veteran of two armed conflicts and a practitioner of TaeKwonDo, I really don’t like admitting that something scares me. But as a registered Independent with significantly liberal tendencies, I find myself something more than annoyed, disappointed, or even made nervous by you. You scare me. When I imagine a world in which you are our President, I shudder, finding myself worrying about my children’s futures in ways that are probably quite similar to what parents in third-world countries have to consider. And that offends me. I didn’t serve my country to protect its freedom to jeopardize the well-being of its people; I served my country to protect the efficacy of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

And you scare me, sir, because of your professed support of the current Administration, which clearly places those very concepts at the gravest risk they have ever faced. You frighten me, not only for that, but for your expressed intent to continue those misplaced, misguided, and malignant policies for as long as, if not more than, a hundred years.

My question to you is simple, sir, because I understand that the need for simplicity is paramount to your understanding of our world. But the question has a few nuances, and thus bears repeating a few times, so please bear with me. Also, please understand that I grasp your position on the perceived value of military occupational forces as referred to in the link above. So, this question is not about the motivations of your military doctrine. Instead, this question is about the motivation of your personal impetus.

“Why do you, John McCain, personally want a hundred or more years of the tragedy we euphemistically refer to as ‘The War on Terror’?”

photo credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

“Why do you want a hundred or more years of maimed or dead veterans?”

photo credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Image

“Why do you desire a hundred or more years of the destruction of innocent lives?”

photo credit: Andrea Comas / Reuters

“What motivates a supposedly-proud American Veteran to promote and encourage a worldview of fear and hatred for a country that should stand at the pinnacle of Compassion and Tolerance?”

The Korean War Memorial

“What inspires a man, elected to represent the people of the State of Arizona in national affairs, to forgo that duty in the pursuit of wielding forms of power that he himself once proudly fought against?”

“What, in other words, turned this:

into this:

?”

There’s no need to answer, sir, although you should. But we understand you really have no answers, just audacity. Baseless, unapologetic, misguided audacity. You’ve become something far, far less than what you once were, Senator. If there is anyone at all in the world who is proud of you, it is only because they fail to realize the incredible mess you would make of our world, and the mockery you make of every other Veteran.

photo credit: Washington Post

Shame on you, sir. Shame on you.