[rrpjr]

Like so much in America today that involves this issue, this thread is both inspiring and depressing.

As for the jab about authenticity (the first impulse of many who don’t like what they read), his parents made his letter available to the Orange County Register, which printed it alongside his obituary. Lt. Daily was an ROTC scholar.

I would think in the case of Lt. Daily, who impressively (certainly for a 23-year-old), declared his intentions to no longer accept inaction in the face of tyranny, liberals would find much to appreciate. For one, what could be more offensive to liberalness than tyranny? Didn’t liberals lionize those who journeyed to Spain to fight the Franco fascists, no matter how futiley? (A fairly mild brand of fascism, by the way, compared to the savage one that far more people face today.) Were THEIR principles “pointless”? Here is a man who described his determination to take action against oppression and tyranny, and then did it. What could possibly be more liberal? And what could be more American.

However “misguided” the national American attempt to wage war in Iraq might turn out to be, or however mismanaged the actual effort has become – and men of good faith can argue this issue – it hardly matters to the point of Lt. Daily’s personal statement. He was only telling us why he joined.

To deny a man like Lt. Daily his due or belittle his sacrifice as “pointless” is a kind of existential graverobbing by a niggardly, illiberal mind. It is a moral insult, not only against an individual, but against individuality itself. And against liberalism.

Once, to be a liberal was to embrace differences, to see them as more evidence of a rich humanity, as a further affirmation of one’s own. It was seen as a thing to love, not to fear.

A true “liberal” would love a man like Lt. Daily to his very bones, and find every way possible to do him honor. He would do so without the least fear of losing his own moral identity or, as the case may be, his own clarity of opposition to the war. In fact, he would welcome Lt. Daily’s convictions as a means of sharpening his own. A true liberal is fearless of competing ideas.

I knew some liberals once. I still know a few. I prize them in my life. But I’m afraid they are like the Mohicans. They are vanishing.

Thanks Joe and Randy. I share your sentiments.