Since an earlier post of mine seems to have prompted this dead-on and entertaining polemic from Gene Healy, I should probably clarify that I’m in full agreement with his take on the sort of ludicrous warrior pose that seems to animate so much war boosterism. My point wasn’t that we should welcome the opportunity to practice Spartan virtue that the conflict with radical Islam presents, only that given the sorts of sentiments inevitably unleashed by such a conflict, it’s tragic that the choice was made to mobilize them in the least helpful possible way. I’d much rather have a boringly placid liberal world in which we all make our meaning through novels and symphonies rather than air-raids or stirring blog polemics.