Bullying, intimidation and retaliation
After 21 years, six months and 10 days of active military service, I am now a civilian. I made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career.
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At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment. Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.
Our citizens are being subjected to the same kinds of attacks tyrants launch against their critics and political opponents. Those who choose loyalty to American values and allegiance to the Constitution over devotion to a mendacious president and his enablers are punished.
But he still has hope.
When I was asked why I had the confidence to tell my father not to worry about my testimony, my response was, “Congressman, because this is America. This is the country I have served and defended, that all my brothers have served, and here, right matters.”
To this day, despite everything that has happened, I continue to believe in the American Dream. I believe that in America, right matters. I want to help ensure that right matters for all Americans.
To be honest I think that’s only part of the story. I can’t really believe any blanket “in America, right matters.” Our history with regard to people of African descent is the biggest reason – if it were true that in America right matters, then that history wouldn’t have been what it is.
But respect to Vindman all the same.
Well said, OB. Well said.
There are at least two meanings of the word ‘right’, the first being about the appropriate course of action for a given desired outcome, and the second being about a privilege enjoyed by one person in relation to one or more others; as in the right of a slave-owner to own and therefore control a slave. A wrong belief leads inevitably to an inappropriate action: such as a belief that the world is flat, or that a military or political cause is irrevocably lost. Moreover there have been, I believe, only two ways established in the entire history of human thought for finding out what is ‘right’: the right belief, and/or the right course of action in any given situation in order to bring about a desired end.
The first is by consulting the texts and lore of a chosen religion. The second is through reason: ‘if we want to bring about outcome X, then we should do Y.’
I think that much of history is made through confusion of the two ‘rights’.