Yet all these conflicts [of the 20th century], terrible as they often were, may be considered the growth spasms of a vigorous democracy. Even the fissures that Vietnam opened in our society, with all the bad feelings they emanated for years to come, can be seen as an enduring lesson in liberty: When the government ran an undeclared war the people did not support, they put an end to it. In that war at home there was honor on both sides; early on in our escalation in Indochina, there were even mass rallies held in favor of the war.

Wrongheaded as those might now seem to have been, I prefer them to our current state of civic disengagement. The most disappointing realization about the war in Iraq is how little we care, how precious few demonstrators there are on either side of the issue. Just as the war exists for most of us on television, so we have subcontracted out our civic feeling to the angry rhetoric of so many ranting heads. We do not serve, we do not pay, we do not watch, and we do not object. Imagine how this might have worked in World War II. No matter how this war comes out, we have already lost.