| Dan, You REALLY don't get it, do you? No matter what justification or equivilency one chooses to use, the moral problem in surrending to the philosophy of one's enemies is that it makes the core assumption your side is wrong, always was wrong, and has no reason to exist. If you have so little faith in your country and its way of life that you can be talked out of believiing in it -- and as noted, that's all that brainwashing really is, not the programming seen in good but off the mark films like "The Manchurian Candidate" -- you have little faith and respect for yourself. The main reason most of the Chinese and North Korean POWs didn't want to go back is that they had already seen the "joys" of Communist socialism and wanted no part of it. The Communists knew that, and it was one of the main reasons they were so demanding that they all be returned to Communist control; can't have it said soldiers went over to the other side in mass and willingly abandoned the true socialist brotherhood of the workers and peasants. (Most of the ones who went back after wanting to change sides endured the joy of reeducation camps, if not shot or executed outright. We didn't do that to anyone of these 21 "turncoats", albeit they did serve time in federal prisons.) For the life of me, the liberal technique of "moral equivalency" fails to impress me that the individual who believes has no core values himself. Cookie Sewell AMPS |