Here's a Pertinent Parable. Read, won't you?

Question

Once there was a band of adventurers traveling throught the wilderness, on their way to a better land. One day as they went along, they started to get stung by hornets now and then. The leader of the group promised to protect them from hornets.

Eventually they came upon a hornets' nest high up in a tree. The leader of the group ordered his aides to poke the nest with a sharp stick, hoping to dislodge the nest and destroy it once and for all. But this only made the hornets angry, and sting them even more.

Some members of the group started to disagree with the strategy of poking the hornets' nest, and urged them to walk away from it. For this, they were denounced as traitors by the rest. They were called "pro-hornet", and accused of undermining those using the stick, of giving aid and comfort to hornets, even of wanting their own group to be stung to death. "If we walk away from the nest", they were warned, "we will appear weak, and the hornets will surely follow us!"

So they kept on poking, and the hornets kept on swarming and stinging, and they made no further progress on their journry.

Now for the mentally challenged, here's an explanation of the parable:

The wilderness group is US.

The leader is Bush.

The hornets are terrorists.

Poking with a stick is the Bush policy.

So, is dissent REALLY traitorous, pro-terrorist, and anti-American? Isn't it in order when our policies don't work, and are frankly counterproductive?

WHO has ever discussed "surrendering"?

We got to do something better than poke with a stick. And poking the WRONG hornet's nest! Iraq did NOT attack us. They were NOT in league with Al Qaeda!

Answer 1

Very Good... and I knew who was who immediately. Now if only those hornets would go after the one who instigated the " poking" all would be well.

Answer 2

Your parable would be a poor metaphor.

If we walked away from a hornet's nest, they would indeed stop stinging, as they are insects and are merely protecting their nest.

Humans are not that simple. They will sting you for almost any reason, no matter what you do, for an infinite number of reasons.

They already stung us. They've stung us for decades. It is only because we are actively trying to destroy the nest that anyone cares. Do I agree with the Bush administration? Not much, but walking away will not stop the stinging. Walking away would be the absolute worst answer.

Is dissent traitorous? Depends on the methods employed. Mostly, no, it is not. But doing it in a manner that provides aid or comfort to the enemy is.

Do I have an answer to what we should do? No. Do I know where the line is on aid and comfort? No. But I do know the worst possible idea, and I do know when the line has obviously been crossed.

People do not equal hornets. What happened when you got in fights in school? Did the people you got in fights with let you walk away and never bother you again?

We'll try another parable.

A bully is harrasing a boy on the playground. They get in a fight. The fight is bad, worse than the boy wants, and worse than the bully. If they simply walk away, surely everything will be okay in the future, yes?

View this parable from either side, with either party being the US and the other party being the Islamists.

If the US is the bully, his reputation as the baddest kid on the playground has been challenged. He cannot allow the boy to get away with it and must keep fighting, or else the boy and everyone like him will begin attacking him for any slights (perceived or real) from the past.

If the US is the boy, stopping the fight now will not make him any more secure. The bully will just come back later to get revenge for him standing up to him. He must continue fighting until the bully is too afraid to mess with him again.

Answer 3

First off making the assumption that your overly transparent comparison is too difficult for us to get is arrogance at its best. The problem with your story is that its overly simplistic. Maybe if you make the assumption that the hornets nest is located right in the middle of a school ground and not only are the hornets attacking the travellers but also the hapless schoolchildren then maybe you are getting close. And even though they only attacked the poor schoolchildren every now and then before, the intervention by the travellers caused a step up in the attacks on the poor innocent children. Then would the idea of the travellers walking away from the mess they created and turning a blind eye to the innocent school children be ok in your eyes?

To answer your question, dissent is perfectly fine. Undermining the efforts of our country and soldiers and cloaking it in the name dissent is not. The undermining of our efforts in Iraq began immediately after the vote to give the President authority to use hostilities was taken. This vote was approved by both the Republicans AND Democrats, and yet as soon as the President announced his intentions the Democrats began shouting "We think we should vote on the issue again!" This has gone on the entire time we have been in Iraq. It has nothing to do with the war and how it is going. It is entirely based on their hatred of the President and their desire to use the issue to regain power. It is traitorous to weaken our position in the world for political gain. Never once has any Democrat offered a better plan for Iraq. Badmouthing the President on the World Stage is not dissent, plain and simple.

Answer 4

1. Your parable is no where close to accurate.
2. Dissent is not traitorous, but the method can be. If you have a better plan to win the war, and debate the merits of it, that is patriotic. If you tell lies about Bush and call him a baby-killing nazi, that is unpatriotic. Any discussion of retreating or surrendering to the enemy is unpatriotic.

Disagree with the war? Fine, do it in a a manner that helps your country, not in a way that will enourages the enemy to kill Americans.

Answer 5

terrorists are not Hornets.
If they'd stayed in their nest over the last 30+ years,there would be no need to go after them.
30+ years of blowing up planes,kidnapping, murder,extortion and generally being a pain in the worlds rectum.
It's about time they got smacked down.

Answer 6

The MAJOR problem with this "parable" is once the "hornets " are pissed off at you, they will follow you and keep stinging you until you kill them all, or THEY kill YOU!

Answer 7

If they were REALLY SERIOUS about getting rid of the hornets, they would set the tree on fire and run like Heck!