Mischaracterization

I was informed by a left-leaning acquaintance a little while ago that some woman someplace got arrested today for staging a protest without a permit. I opined that I could not care less. She excoriated me for my apathy, and bemoaned the apathy she sees everywhere she looks. “Sons and daughters are dying,” quoth she, “and nobody cares.”
She committed a common error in reasoning. She looked around, saw that nobody agreed with her, and declared that she was surrounded by apathy. She was wrong, of course. We care. We just don’t agree with her “stop the war, bring the troops home, surrender to al-Qaida” position.
Middle America is not apathetic, friends. We care very much. We just happen to support the war against Islamist terrorism. We happen to be in favor of it. And if the price of winning this war is that brave men and women have to give their lives that we may live free and unafraid, that’s a price we’re willing to pay.
I’ll say it again: Yes. I am willing to sit here and let others sacrifice themselves on the altar of freedom to secure the blessings of liberty for me and my posterity. I already sacrificed a year and a half of my life to defend the liberty and prosperity of others...Yes, I can live with myself. Yes, I have a clear conscience. I am not apathetic. I am enthusiastic. Yes, yes, yes.
I tried to explain this to her. I don’t think she got it. She just got angrier and angrier until she left.
Some people are like that, I guess.
Anybody who uses the phrase “useless” to describe the war on terror. Their nonsense. Sometimes people end up so far away from reality that they can’t even agree on the basic premises of life. Up is up, y’all. Down is down. Tyranny breeds extremism. Liberty creates prosperity, and prosperity leads to security. Laws of nature, you know? If you flat-earthers don’t like it, you guys can keep getting stoned and trying to relive the sixties. Just don’t act under the false impression that anybody, anywhere, is listening to a word you’re saying. Because seriously, we’ve all moved on to bigger and better things.