House of Eratosthenes

That he is the father of Nick Berg, who was so brutally executed on television, matters not one bit. Not insofar as taking a measure of what his opinion is in the war, and what exactly his opinion means.

I do not mean, by this, that he isn’t suffering from terrible grief over what happened to his son. Nor do I mean that I don’t personally care about his family. What I mean to say is, that as far as his opinions and how they are relevant to the public issues that arise from the current conflict, his status as the father of a fatality matters not one bit.

Even granting the premise that this status gives him some special authority to comment, and/or knowledge about what’s going on — and that’s an extravagant premise — this would have importance to the rest of us, if and only if Michael Berg’s opinion were somehow shaped by this tragic event. No compelling evidence that this is the case, has ever come to my attention…not once. In point of fact, of all the relatives of military and civilian casualities arising from this conflict, right back to September 11, 2001 — among those grieving relatives who are anti-war now, to the best I can determine, each and every single one of them were anti-war while their loved ones were still alive.

I’m sure there are exceptions to that somewhere. But I don’t know of any. More importantly, nobody’s taking the time to point such examples out to me. “Bob is against the war; Bob’s son was killed in the war.” The implication is that Bob knows more than I do — but that’s logically unsustainable, if somewhere you can’t find a “Bob” who was apathetic about the war…or in favor of the war…and he came to be anti-war after his son was killed. If you found someone like that, then he could talk about this broadened sense of perspective he had, and the things he came to learn as a result thereof, after this terrible tragedy in his family.

But I don’t get to hear about people like that. I get to hear about Michael Berg types and Cindy Sheehan types. People who, to the best I can determine, are anti-war activists because every day for years, they have rolled out of bed wanting to be just that — and one terrible day, they became parents of war casualties. Therefore, they became celebrities in a movement wherein they were previously just “movers” of the movement.

It would be oh so much more powerful to find me a parent of a war casualty who joined the anti-war movement as a result. I’m sure such people are out there. But the anti-war folks don’t think it’s important to tell me about them.

In the Coulter video clip I referenced just a few minutes ago, the author presents a theory: Advocates like this are presented by the anti-war movement because in so doing, the movement intimidates their opposition from engaging those advocates. Which raises the question about whether there’s anything to be engaged.

Michael Berg doesn’t think Zarqawi killed his son. At least he says he doesn’t. Is there any compelling evidence to be presented that would persuade me to think Zarqawi was innocent and President Bush is guilty? If there is, then Berg isn’t acting like that’s the case.

Personally, I don’t think Michael Berg has a single opinion, none whatsoever, that he wouldn’t have if Nick Berg was a complete stranger to him instead of his son. Grief, so far as I can determine, doesn’t change a mind. It may intensify an opinion already held, but it doesn’t show any sign of actually changing what that opinion is.

The bereaved-parent status of people like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg, therefore, is logically irrelevant to the discussion at hand. There, I said it. It’s true.

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Grief Doesn’t Change A MindThursday, June 8th, 2006

Grief Doesn’t Change A Mind
Thursday, June 8th, 2006