Let's face it, America is suffering a serious identity crisis. No one knows why the old labels don't fit anymore, but the fact is they don't. Not for most of us. We used to be conservatives or liberals, Democrats or Republicans, we used to be Catholics or Protestants or maybe Mormon. But now? Now we're just confused. America desperately needs a couple of new words to define the debate of democracy, words that haven't been polluted by the corrosion and erosion of political time and tide. For my nickel the words "Pragmatic" and "Idealist" would be fine candidates for the job. Pragmatic Idealism as America's guiding philosophy.
Allow me to give an example of what I would consider Pragmatic Idealism. It involves a fully righteous work for the Department of Defense. Yes, that is possible in a PI environment. Not likely under the current misuse of the military, but possible if some fluke of luck set the government both pragmatic and idealistic at the same time.
To make it happen I think Congress should commission the construction of five new capital ships to join the United State's navy, one for each fleet. They'll be thousand footers, state of the art nuke powered and the absolute fastest thing afloat. But that's not what makes them PI. What makes them PI is that these ships are to be designed from the keel up to be dual purpose vessels right from the beginning.
In times of conflict, times of war, their mission is to pick up the army's heavy equipment that can't be airlifted (the largest strategic hole in America's military… we can't get the heavy stuff there in a hurry) and move it across the water. In such configuration I want her to carry a double complement of the Aegis fleet air defense system, anti-sub weaponry, a brace of launchers for surface to surface rockets and provisions to cleat down say eight of the army's big turreted 155's to the deck with their fire control linked to the mother ship. In other words, if shove turns into a shooting match the lady is nobodies lightweight, she fights heavy cruiser class.
And of course, of course, this is the mission we hope she never has to take, that she never has to turn a screw in anger because it's in times of peace when the lady shows her true worth.
I want her holds pre-configured, piped and plumbed and planned so that when she is unloaded she can serve as a five hundred bed triage hospital. Give the corpsmen and the MASH crew someplace already set up for them to work. Arrange the passageways to be convenient for the helicopter decks to go in service moving the injured instead of hunting submarines. Emphasize all things humanitarian: build her with fresh water abilities fifty times her compliment, where she is there will be clean water to drink… load communications gear out the wazoo, when she lights up the antennas I want her to walk and talk the world on every frequency and format known to man, where she is there will be communication… design in the ability for those massive engines to provide power beyond herself, to bring up the region around her as the healing moves ashore so there can be light, and refrigeration. You get the picture. An empowered angel of mercy when the typhoon or the tidal wave just shut down civilization.
And perhaps most important of all I want her to be the flagship of a military fleet that is not named after some warrior of great renown, no. I want them named after the great humanitarian leaders of history as befits her main mission.
Speaking for myself? I do not ever again want to be embarrassed by seeing the United States offer paltry money to the survivors of some disaster when there is nothing for that money to buy. I do not want to be any part of such a sterile and bitter façade of false compassion.
No. I want to be proud to be an American, I want my President to go on TV and say "The USS Gandhi is in Pearl Harbor being loaded with all haste, and eighteen hours hence she will part the wave at a rate no vessel on earth can match to carry aid and relief to our brothers and sisters in God whose need is known…"
I started out a conservative in the old sense of the word… I was proud to be an American. I would like to have that pride restored, restored by my nation understanding and acting on the fact that where the military can suppress violent aggression it cannot truly make peace, not unless that military is, like the ships described above, redesigned from the bottom up for the same duality of purpose… to be the most formidable force on the planet against those who use violent aggression against the innocent, and from that same strength be the most competent men and women to walk the earth in terms of understanding and nurturing all things that truly build peace so violence is no longer a needed thing. Our tour as the world's policeman is pretty well over, and it should be. But there's nothing to say we shouldn't open a fire department and ambulance service in that place. You know, Pragmatic Idealism. I'd love to see it take root in the United States. But I'm not sure I'll live that long.
