True Americans

Thinking about the war in Iraq I went back and read an 1849 essay by Henry David Thoreau known as, "Civil Disobedience." Thoreau was writing during the time of slavery and of the Mexican War -- a war that he, and many others, considered to be completely immoral. They believed that America had declared war and invaded Mexico without sufficient cause, or more precisely, that President Polk had created a false justification for the war. Abraham Lincoln was, at the time, a member of the house of representatives and actually called for the impeachment of President Polk over the Mexican War -- it was the first action that Lincoln had taken that made him known across the country.

Thoreau talks about people who simply went along with the government,

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.

Thoreau also talks about what it means to be an American and a follower of the founding fathers. He says,

There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them.

As I was thinking about parallels between the Mexican War and the War in Iraq, I discovered I was not the first to make that connection; it was made at least as early as 2003 by Ruben Arvizu.