Make War, Not Love

We love to make war in this country. And we’re very uptight about sex. Images of sex are considered dirty and rated X, kept out of sight in plain brown wrappers, while images of war can readily be seen in prime time, proudly advertised. We like wars in this country. If there isn’t a real enemy to fight, a genuine bad guy, we’ll make one up. The problem is, when we do that, it doesn’t always go so well. We had a War on Poverty that ended up with more poor than when we started. Maybe because we spent so much on the one in Vietnam. We have a War on Drugs that’s put a million people behind bars, while the streets still flow with drugs, and it seems everybody who’s convinced they’re hip still uses them. We have a War on Terror that’s put only a few people behind bars, some who are still wondering why. Those terrorists and their crazy ideas! But it’s hard to fight an idea, except with a better idea. Bombs and bullets don’t work that well. No one has ever stopped an idea with force. Christianity was an idea they tried to stamp out, and that didn’t work. Democracy was another one. And racial equality. Pesky ideas that just won’t go away. And then there are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that we just can’t seem to bring closure to. Of course, the problem with invading countries is that unless you kill everybody that wants to fight, you can never leave, or they get to say “Ha, we won!”, and that would be bad for our already wounded national pride. But should that finally happen, you can always just turn off the TV and retire with that special someone for a little lovemaking…just make sure the shades are drawn, you wouldn’t want to end up behind bars with the drug dealers and terrorists.