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On a Facebook page containing numerous discussion threads tangentially related to Barack Obama’s campaign for president, I came across this meme, which I’m sure I’ve seen elsewhere:
( Examples )
Is there discrimination against soldiers, police, and gun-toting civilians? Certainly, and sometimes it’s just as mindless as the meme describes. Sometimes, too, it’s merely a reaction to some soldiers’ attitude of superiority toward those who didn’t volunteer to put their lives on the line for their country. But what the meme gets wrong is that many so-called “sheep,” myself included, are perfectly willing to tolerate gun nuts who don’t shoot innocent people, and to support the police and the military when they are doing their job, defending us from the wolves, as long as they do their level best not to kill a suspected wolf who turns out to be innocent. More generally, we demand that the sheepdogs don’t violate our rights in any but the most extreme circumstances. If that isn’t a reasonable expectation, then we may as well give up our belief in the viability of freedom and democracy, and allow our leaders to turn our sheepdogs into another kind of wolf, the enforcers of a fascist regime.
"There are three kinds of people in the world: sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. Wolves are bad people who want to kill sheep. All civilians who don’t carry weapons are sheep. Sheepdogs (soldiers, police, and civilians with guns) are needed to protect the sheep. There’s nothing wrong with being a sheep, except that being unable to defend themselves, sheep are in denial about the existence of wolves. Consequently, they tend to hate the sheepdogs because the sheepdogs remind them that wolves are out there and could strike at any time."Before going into what this simplified picture of the world gets wrong, let’s cover the two big problems it leaves out. One is the question of who’s in charge of the sheepdogs and what he/she tells them to do. The other is the issue of how to tell which of the people are wolves, and which of those wolves actually pose a threat that we, as a country, need to deal with.
( Examples )
Is there discrimination against soldiers, police, and gun-toting civilians? Certainly, and sometimes it’s just as mindless as the meme describes. Sometimes, too, it’s merely a reaction to some soldiers’ attitude of superiority toward those who didn’t volunteer to put their lives on the line for their country. But what the meme gets wrong is that many so-called “sheep,” myself included, are perfectly willing to tolerate gun nuts who don’t shoot innocent people, and to support the police and the military when they are doing their job, defending us from the wolves, as long as they do their level best not to kill a suspected wolf who turns out to be innocent. More generally, we demand that the sheepdogs don’t violate our rights in any but the most extreme circumstances. If that isn’t a reasonable expectation, then we may as well give up our belief in the viability of freedom and democracy, and allow our leaders to turn our sheepdogs into another kind of wolf, the enforcers of a fascist regime.
