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DEMOCRACY: Government & Politics | October 5, 1987


THE REAL MEANING OF COURAGE

An Unpublished Letter to Los Angeles Times

Courage -- a word often bandied about during the Reagan Era -- means different things to different people.

Was it courage -- or cowardice -- for this Administration to set-up an offshore government, dealing with terrorists, running guns, and hoarding millions from the sale of federal property, in secret from and in opposition to the will of us people?

Was it courage -- or cowardice -- for this Administration to promise a foreign nation that we would re-flag and defend its ships and, thus, commit our military to side with the forces of one dictatorial government against another in the world's bloodiest war and to only afterwards consult with our congressional representatives and then only to coerce them into agreement, by claiming we would lose face if we didn't follow through?

Was it courage -- or cowardice -- for this Administration to nominate for the Supreme Court someone who time and again has sided with the powerful against the powerless and, thus, has violated the original intent of all just law, as first expressed by Hammurabi ("That the strong might not oppress the weak...")?

Was it courage -- or cowardice -- for this Administration to lead our nation into as much indebtedness as all previous Administrations taken together had amassed and, then, to put the blame solely on Congress and the fiscal responsibility on present and future taxpayers and on future Administrations, whom this Administration tries to bind by a wishful-thinking "Balanced Budget Amendment"?

And is it courage -- or simply "politics" -- for those of us dissatisfied with the current course of events, affecting our life, liberty, and property, to dissent and, thus, try to preserve what is democratic in our republic?

You be the judge.

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