It's only natural that the leftists at the Daily Kos would whole-heartedly agree with the sentiment of MSNBC weekend host Chris Hayes that our military men and women aren't "heroes." In a piece headlined "Stand Up for Chris Hayes," a blogger with the byline "mcgoverngreatpatriot" insisted that "dating back to Viet Nam, I have known many who have fallen in wars, and they were anything but heroes."
"Some that I can think of, came home on leave from Viet Nam bragging about how many innocent women and children they killed," the blogger complained. "They carried body parts of those they killed as kind of a trophy, made into tobacco pouches, etc. When they returned to Viet Nam, some of these people were killed. They were not heroes." It's somehow McCarthyism for NewsBusters or anyone else to protest these remarks:
I find it very troubling that someone with the integrity of Chris Hayes is called out for expressing his opinion, and not walking in lock-step with everyone else. It seems that since 9/11, we are almost in another McCarthy era, where if one expresses a contrary opinion, they are declared a traitor and must apologize. I was warned about a country such as this when I was growing up; however that country was Russia, not the United States.
....We are a military country, and we are so conditioned into it; that we don't even realize it. Look at the movies that are made, look at the commercials on t.v. If you watch closely it is amazing how many have a military theme. Last Fourth of July I went to a parade. There were 160 units in the parade. I kept track, and over 100 units had a military theme. I don't know if there has ever been another military country like this one; and a country where we are afraid to say even one word of dissent for fear of being accused a traitor. [Seriously?]
There are two people in my life who I am extremely close to and love very much. They both went in the Marines. Now, I don't even feel like I know them. They have been brainwashed to such an extent that one cannot even reason with them. It's scary and it's sickening. I realize that much of this has to happen to a person to have them perform in combat; but this is overkill.
One of them left again for another deployment. He told his son he was going to "kill bad guys." I'm sure that somewhere; someone on the "other" side, told his son he is going to kill bad guys. Both believe completely in what they are fighting for. So if many of our fallen military are heroes; does that make the members of the enemy military who have fallen, heroes as well? And what of the millions of innocent civilians who have been collateral damage? They too certainly must be heroes.
At the Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky certainly stood up for his liberal buddy and imagined that a mere blog post citing Hayes is like "the stockade" for offensive speech:
I would add only that this entire little fracas isn't about the alleged substance of the complaint against him. It's just right-wing bloggers spotting an opportunity to pile on and bully a liberal...
But the objectionable thing here is not the idea that soldiers are heroes. The objectionable thing is that there is a kind of blackmail associated with words like these, the majority saying to the minority that if you don't agree with us about X, it's the stockade for you. It's always been an ugly impulse; see Ibsen's Enemy of the People for starters. And in this country, the home of the First Amendment, it's more than ugly. It's unpatriotic.
It's somehow natural for liberals to say it's "unpatriotic" to protest military-bashing remarks. You can say 9/11 is the "chickens coming home to roost" and it's somehow offensive to call it "unpatriotic." It would be nice to hear Tomasky pronounce on how Ed Schultz thinks it's "treasonous" to suggest Barack Obama's not an American in his heart.
