CIVIL WAR - A CONFLICT OF TERMS. . . like jumbo shrimp and army intelligence. There were plenty of term conflicts I was weighing as I listened to the two mayors read off the names yesterday of those War Between the States participants buried in the newly-dedicated Historic Morristown Cemetery. What would those men think if returned to life for a day or two in 2014 Morristown? Who could do the explaining for a century missed? Ive never understood the attraction of participating in Civil War reenactments. They remind me of my boyhood days of playing Guns with the Whetsel brothers after we went to a Saturday morning western at Horse Krickers. To me, this war stands as the greatest tragedy in the history of our country. The real value in keeping it in our conscience would seem to be the examination of the cause of and prevention for future culture warfare. I doubt the exhumed lives of the McCrarys, McFarlands, et al, if restarted from their cemetery plots, could grasp how much their former world has shrunk. In the time it took a general to move his troops and cannons from the Morristown College site to Talbott in 1863, a 2014 person can fly from here to Los Angeles, claim baggage, and get checked in at the Hilton. As the names of the deceased were being remembered, I decided the biggest change from 1863 to 2014 would not be the issues of conflict, but in how conflict is managed. The organized formal killing of kinfolk is now at the bottom of the options list. We probably wont take up arms over how to get the Animal Shelter functioning properly again, or where to put a bigger jail. Food City will flourish with a fully stocked beer shelf and stormwater will go where its supposed to. Rhetoric will likely continue to boil overarguing gay marriage, illegal immigration, and how to know if schools are really stamping out ignorance. The difference between us and the Civil War boys is we have plenty of historical examples of how not to settle disputes. $0.02 Stay Tuned.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 12:08:35 +0000
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