Dan Ireland's The Ultimate Arena: The Sacrifice of an American Gladiator is a fictionalized account, speculative in some of the details, but true in all the major facts, to the story of Pat Tillman. Any Good American who "supports the troops" has a duty to read this book, as it recounts the life and death of just about the only troop in recent years to be given a face and a name, if not a voice, by the U.S. media.
The most disturbing question raised for me by this story, as by news reports of the actual events, is unrelated to the killing of Tillman or the lying about it. My question is this: How could this larger-than-life, super-inquisitive, amateur ethicist and philosopher, raised in a uniquely intellectually stimulating and morally instructive family have come to the conclusion that it was a good idea to sign up for participation in mass murder? And secondarily: How, after concluding that he'd been duped and was engaged in purely destructive mass killing, could the same independent rebel have decided it was his moral duty to continue with it, even though he had the ability to easily stop?
hat’s the difference between these two Democrats, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Rep. Barbara Lee of California? Chris Murphy puts on a pointless, pompous filibuster to achieve a meaningless vote on gun control measures he knows will never pass. Rep. Barbara Lee is in her 15th year of quietly trying to persuade ANY other Representative or Senator to accept constitutional responsibility for deciding whether or not the US should go to war. Guess who gets more attention?
