This post on Mike James’ weblog says something I’ve often pondered when I see the collections of decals that often appear together, on things like SUVs.

Oh but your flag decal won’t get you
Into Heaven any more.
We’re already overcrowded
From your dirty little wars.
Now Jesus he don’t like killin’
No matter what the reason is for,
And your flag decal won’t get you
Into Heaven any more.
John Prine 1971 via Mike James via Ralph

A while back someone in our neighborhood had a sign in their yard that says “Jesus saves”. I commented to my wife Janet: “If you believe with your heart and confess with your lips, and put a sign in your yard, thou shalt be saved”

The combinations of stickers often found together, like “Pro-Life” and “Bush/Cheney” and “Support Our Troops” and “John 3:16” and “In case of rapture, this car shall be unmanned” is a constant reminder of how militant many “conservatives” are; it’s perfectly fine, if our government tells us it’s so, to “pre-empt” and do all kinds of other intrusive, destructive, murderous things in the name of what some pool of “experts” tells us would “likely” happen if we don’t act now. I hear all of the ame arguments about why it is RIGHT to drop the h-bomb. “Oh, don’t you realize how many American lives would have been lost if we had to fight THEIR kind of war?” Well, no, and we never found out, because we went ahead and did the deed that was KNOWN beforehand to mean CERTAIN death to thousands upon thousands, all on the basis of a THEORY.

And then people look at me like I’ve asked a stupid question when I ask “Would Jesus drop bombs?” Most say NO, but then immediately counter with “Sometimes you just have to make decisions that save lives later” and so I have to conclude (” I guess Jesus would hire somebody else to do it”), and also often say “That’s war”. This is where WAR, as a catch-all, a priori solution and conclusion , is just plain wrong. War as an assumtption or default, and often as an “all too quick alternative” is also wrong. When “talks” seem to get bad PR from the get-go, and the militants are dismissing the prospects from the beginning, something is amiss.

I am particularly disturbed about these tendencies when I learn that invading and “destabilizing” Iraq for the purposes of gaining more control over the region was the plan of the Bush administration all along, and they USED the 9-11 events as a sprinboard and a propaganda campaign to get it done.