Support the Troops, Indeed.

"You raised your right hand."

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard this phrase, I wouldn't need a regular job. In today's environment, servicemembers who speak out against the war are roundly shouted down with a similar response. Since we volunteered during a time of war, conservatives say, we have no right to complain about the abuses we endure: lengthening deployments, foreshortened dwell times, increased strains on family, substandard medical care. Personally, I think that the demand should be higher simply BECAUSE we volunteered, but many on the American Right don't seem to agree with me. Apparently placing patriotism over principle isn't enough to qualify as a "Real American."

And now, it seems that the statement even applies to our educations.

Here's a phrase: "Support the Troops." Anybody remember this? Look, I'm the last person one will ever hear demanding deferential treatment. If anything, the effusive shows of gratitude often creep me out. But it is galling to me, hearing the warmongers in our midst shriek about full backing for our Armed Services, only to then turn about and say that we don't deserve adequate benefits because, well, "we volunteered." These, by the way, are the same people who threatened me for speaking out.

This is your movement conservatism, America: a cabal of corporate-media shills and the well-funded interests who control them. There is no "conservative intelligentsia," only a group of tanned pundits, drowning in a sea of Aqua-Net, who say whatever they're paid to. They'll beat the drum of war as long as they can, and then abandon those who answer the call.

These are your gods, Joe Six-Pack. These are your priests, your patriots. These are your emperors, and they have no clothes.

More to the point, they have no souls.