Letter to the Editor: Bad Apples

Dear Editor
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, an aspect of local Letter-to-the-Editor writing ought to be made explicit: Criticism of MAGA Conservatism is not by nature a promotion of Liberalism. Yes, many critical statements have been written by Democrats, but they are by and large bi-partisan warnings, warnings of radical change. Those statements are hardly Liberal when we remember that “Conservatism” arose in Western Civilization as a bullwork against radical change.
The new-found Republican fondness for Russia is radical, especially when you compare the Trump inspired infatuation with the views of Ronald Reagan, who called Russia “the evil empire.”
The unwillingness of Republican legislators to fund the Ukraine war effort against Russia is radical. When our nation had the opportunity to weaken our chief adversary, through the military surrogate of Afghanistan, thirty-some years ago, there was bipartisan support for Afghan funding.
At that time informed members of both parties believed “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The geopolitical dynamics are identical today. Conservatives roundly applauded Mtt Romney, in 2012, when he scolded President Obama for suggesting Russian expansionism had run its course.
Flip-flopping 180 degrees on a matter of national security, in just a dozen years, is as frivolous as it is radical.
“Been there, done that,” ought to be the national response to the na”ive politicians who portray our NATO allies as an economic burden. Again, thoughtful members of both parties came to believe that our isolationism in the 1930s was a huge mistake, hastening the greater burden of WWII in Eurupe.

It was practical former farm boys, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, who created and nurtured NATO in the late 1940s and sos. For the sake of world peace, those hayseeds utilized the most parsimonious military principle known to man, “there’s strength in numbers.” Castor oil in hand, their mothers taught them, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and that’s the economic principle they applied to the nuclear age alliance system.
Baby-boomers generally regard our WWII troops as heroes, but the MAGA leader has offered the most self-exposing comment any cringe-masking therapist has ever heard, referring to the fallen as “suckers and losers.” If the red Republican carpet is rolled into Ukraine, for the Russians, we can assume that the MAGA guru was not greatly impressed with the “last full measure of devotion” shown by our Cold War warriors, who have checked the anti-American advance since 1945.
How do we explain the civic radicalization of a practical people to our forefathers, Reagan, Truman, and Ike? Should we point to the historian, George Santayana, who said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”? How about quoting the poet, Willaim Butler Yeats, who wrote, “The center cannot hold,” when he sensed that his world was spinning out of control?
No, too hifalutin. Let’s go with a saying their mothers would have shared, “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.”
Sincerely,
Jesse Laurentius
Perryville