Wars and Fools 3.10.26

Wars are not good.  Wars cost a lot of money, are very disruptive to innocent people, and cost lives.  So, there are economic, social and moral reasons to use informed judgement and extreme caution before entering an armed conflict, much less starting one.  Before becoming Vice-President, our current Vice President made the following statements, “America doesn’t have to constantly police every region of the world. Our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.”  In September of 2024, Vance even said that a war between Israel and Iran was in fact “the most likely and most dangerous scenario” for provoking World War III.

As we enter the end of basketball season and the beginning of what we call March Madness, we are also beginning college baseball season.  And I could not help but jump on a softball pitch that our President served up yesterday. 

Here is his pitch, which he mistakenly believed to be a deadly fast ball. He says the war on Iran will be a short one calling it “a little excursion” and has discounted the disruptions to global shipping and gas prices. Rising gas prices at home, he said, are “a very small price to pay” for national security. “Only fools would think differently,” he wrote on social media.

Although not inherently bad, labels matter. Descriptive labels are helpful and even necessary.  However, judgement labels like the word fools can be counterproductive and even downright mean.  And judgement labels say a lot more about the person who is using them than the person(s) it is directed at. 

In his book, The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz’s second agreement is, “Don’t take anything personally.”  He argues that taking things personally sets yourself up to suffer for nothing. He also states that when people use labels on others, it says more about the person using the label than the person who is being labeled.   To avoid taking things personally, avoid what he calls personal importance. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we assume that everything is about “me.”

When we can get away from the personal importance trap, we can avoid taking things personally, which helps us to avoid unnecessary conflict and suffering. Unfortunately, our president is Exhibit A in falling into the personal importance trap.

William Shakespeare understood this concept well.  In many of his plays, he uses the “fool” in the play to create great satire.  As a label, the word fool is very judgmental and is used to describe people who act unwisely or imprudently. However, Shakespeare turns that label on its head.  And the fool is usually the wisest person in the play.

And here is what I say to our President’s use of that label. I, John Franklin, am a fool like the wise fool in Shakespeare’s play, King Lear. As the sharp-tongued truth-teller who highlights the King’s errors and madness, the fool sees the truth for what it is. I, like many others, will do the same. 

What our President fails to realize is that his statement, “that only fools would think differently” is so very true – so true that it becomes satire. Saturday Night Live could have a field day with this one. 

Most Americans did not want this war. Most Americans still do not support this war. Privately, our Vice President does not support this war. So, most Americans are like the wise fools in Shakespeare’s plays, the paradoxically insightful characters who use humor, wit, and apparent madness to speak truth to power. These characters, often marginalized, act as detached observers, exposing the folly of supposedly noble characters. 

To survive the madness that we are currently experiencing, I have learned to detach myself emotionally by compartmentalizing, something I learned to do to survive a difficult childhood.  This allows me to literally not think about the universal damage our current leadership is inflicting on all of us. With that said, I know that many do not have that luxury. 

Mr. President. I am one of the many fools who do think differently from you. And I am so very, very proud to be called a fool by you.