McCain Speech at the New School

[Pangloss]

John McCain gave an amazing comencement speach at the New School in New York on Friday. It was disrupted by anti-war demonstrators who tried to stop him, but in the end he delivered it. Normally I don't like to quote a source as partisan as the Wall Street Journal, but in this case I think the story speaks for itself.

 

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008409

 

Here are a couple of fascinating quotes from the speech:

 

Americans should argue about this war. It has cost the lives of nearly 2,500 of the best of us. It has taken innocent life. It has imposed an enormous financial burden on our economy. At a minimum, it has complicated our ability to respond to other looming threats. Should we lose this war, our defeat will further destabilize an already volatile and dangerous region, strengthen the threat of terrorism, and unleash furies that will assail us for a very long time. I believe the benefits of success will justify the costs and risks we have incurred. But if an American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state their opposition, and argue for another course. It is your right and your obligation. I respect you for it. I would not respect you if you chose to ignore such an important responsibility. But I ask that you consider the possibility that I, too, am trying to meet my responsibilities, to follow my conscience, to do my duty as best as I can, as God has given me light to see that duty.

 

This is a clash of ideals, a profound and terrible clash of ideals. It is a fight between right and wrong. Relativism has no place in this confrontation. We're not defending an idea that every human being should eat corn flakes, play baseball or watch MTV. We're not insisting that all societies be governed by a bicameral legislature and a term-limited chief executive. We are insisting that all people have a right to be free, and that right is not subject to the whims and interests and authority of another person, government or culture. Relativism, in this contest, is most certainly not a sign of our humility or ecumenism; it is a mask for arrogance and selfishness. It is, and I mean this sincerely and with all humility, not worthy of us. We are a better people than that.

 

This is the most fascinating part, right at the end:

 

I had a friend once, who, a long time ago, in the passions and resentments of a tumultuous era in our history, I might have considered my enemy. He had come once to the capitol of the country that held me prisoner, that deprived me and my dearest friends of our most basic rights, and that murdered some of us. He came to that place to denounce our country's involvement in the war that had led us there. His speech was broadcast into our cells. I thought it a grievous wrong then, and I still do.

 

A few years later, he had moved temporarily to a kibbutz in Israel. He was there during the Yom Kippur War, when he witnessed the support America provided our beleaguered ally. He saw the huge cargo planes bearing the insignia of the United States Air Force rushing emergency supplies into that country. And he had an epiphany. He had believed America had made a tragic mistake by going to Vietnam, and he still did. He had seen what he believed were his country's faults, and he still saw them. But he realized he had let his criticism temporarily blind him to his country's generosity and the goodness that most Americans possess, and he regretted his failing deeply. When he returned to his country he became prominent in Democratic Party politics, and helped elect Bill Clinton president of the United States. He still criticized his government when he thought it wrong, but he never again lost sight of all that unites us.

 

We met some years later. He approached me and asked to apologize for the mistake he believed he had made as a young man. Many years had passed since then, and I bore little animosity for anyone because of what they had done or not done during the Vietnam War. It was an easy thing to accept such a decent act, and we moved beyond our old grievance.

 

We worked together in an organization dedicated to promoting human rights in the country where he and I had once come for different reasons. I came to admire him for his generosity, his passion for his ideals, for the largeness of his heart, and I realized he had not been my enemy, but my countryman--my countryman--and later my friend. His friendship honored me. We disagreed over much. Our politics were often opposed, and we argued those disagreements. But we worked together for our shared ideals. We were not always in the right, but we weren't always in the wrong either, and we defended our beliefs as we had each been given the wisdom to defend them.

 

David remained my countryman and my friend, until the day of his death, at the age of 47, when he left a loving wife and three beautiful children, and legions of friends behind him. His country was a better place for his service to her, and I had become a better man for my friendship with him. God bless him.

 

Wow.

 

So how was this speech received by students and faculty at the New School, which dwells only a few blocks from Ground Zero?

 

Dozens of faculty and students turned their back on the Senator, others booed and heckled, and a senior invited to speak threw out her prepared remarks and mocked their invited guest as he sat nearby. Some 1,200 had signed petitions asking that Mr. McCain be disinvited.

 

Wow again. I wonder what it was that inspired this behavior. Let's see if we can find out from this quote:

 

"The Senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," said senior Jean Sara Rohe. "I am young and though I don't possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous."

 

Really. It sounds to me like you and the senator are in complete agreement, and that he reflects the VERY ideals upon which your university was founded. Such as free speech.

 

Imagine that.

[Jim]

Wow again. I wonder what it was that inspired this behavior. Let's see if we can find out from this quote:

 

 

 

Really. It sounds to me like you and the senator are in complete agreement' date=' and that he reflects the VERY ideals upon which your university was founded. Such as free speech.

 

Imagine that.[/quote']

 

 

Did you see the response of former Sen. Kerry after McCain's speech? I can't find a transcript but essentially he said they were cowards heckling in anonymity and that one day they may realize that real courage was standing up to such jeers. I do not see how such hecklers expect to be taken seriously.

[Phi for All]

Really. It sounds to me like you and the senator are in complete agreement, and that he reflects the VERY ideals upon which your university was founded. Such as free speech.

How can minds *in college* be so closed?

[Pangloss]

At first I thought, "Okay, they're just expressing their opinions as well, and then they'll take the moral high ground and shut up and listen to what he has to say." Sadly, instead they jeered him, held up signs, turned their backs, called his speech "boring", and many just plain walked out.

 

But the really sad thing is that adults are often no better. Is there really any difference between standing up and jeering, or sitting there politely and attentively with a closed, predisposed, partisan mind?

 

Yeah they behaved like children. They ARE children, busily growing up in a social context and environment that is not interested in helping them achieve ideological freedom and open-mindedness.

 

But the really scary thing is to consider what kind of adults they will become.

[Sisyphus]

Great speach. Did anyone else think he was talking about Kerry until he got to the end? I wonder if that was intentional, and what it would mean if it was.

 

And yes, the hecklers are just disgusting. I hope Jon Stewart ridicules them mercilessly. That would make them more ashamed than any of the tired propaganda their fellow student conservatives have undoubtably trotted out. Of course, I'm not really surprised by this, and I don't really share Phi for All's question. I know for a fact that there is no school in existence that doesn't have a large percentage of idiots, and modern politics has made at least two comfortable niches for braying jackasses.

[Pangloss]

modern politics has made at least two comfortable niches for braying jackasses.

 

Nicely put.

[padren]

and modern politics has made at least two comfortable niches for braying jackasses.

 

Don't forget the "don't blame me I vote for a sexy third party" crowd.

 

 

 

I do think it was horribly disrespectful of him to pawn off the debate as between the ideals of Freedom Lovers and Moral Relativists. Its that sort of BS that makes you want to completely give up on the concept of debate and high words and the the search for a better common ground, and just try to destroy the man with as much mud and political force as can be mustered.

 

To throw out such a shoddy straw-man after saying everything he did about the need for people to speak their minds in open dialog...honestly it makes me want to throw up. Its just sickening. I don't want him to think one way or another about the war, but he should be at least honest when framing what the debate is about.

 

 

 

EDIT:

Pangloss, after reading the speech in the link itself, I see the quotes have a lot of missing context. The portion about Relativism is about genocide in Dufar, not the Iraq War. I still don't have any idea who thinks Relativism is good, and who he's talking about that holds it as such, but I am quite glad to see he wasn't talking about the Iraq War.

[Pangloss]

Yeah that was kinda glaringly out of context, sorry about that.

[john5746]

Great speach. Did anyone else think he was talking about Kerry until he got to the end? I wonder if that was intentional' date=' and what it would mean if it was.

[/quote']

 

That's the thing I like most about McCain. He is know to be a maverick, going his own way against his party if needed. But, he has the ability to work with bipartisan groups to get things done. He put his life on the line and endured torture for his country, but doesn't resent those that spoke against his effort.

 

A true hero.