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Art, your suggestion that all Americans support the President because he's your leader and the "Commander in Chief" also bothers me.
For starters, I don't think referring to him in military terms is really appropriate. Yes, he's the Commander in Chief, but by using that term you are imbuing your whole argument with some quasi-military character, that seems to imply some sort of obedience is required due to his position as the leader of your military. He's also the leader of the country in social and political terms. And western, democratic political systems call for debate, dissention and even opposition. Hell, a political opposition is mandatory in a modern democratic nation!
Secondly, I don't believe that in a democracy, where freedom of expression, the promotion of alternative points of view, public and social empowerment (as opposed to centralized authority) are fundamental, that mindless or automatic compliance and support of the leader seem natural. That smacks more of a autocratic Orwellian society than a free democratic one.
Of course people should be free to disagree and even withdraw their support from a democratically elected leader who is implementing policies (military, social, economic, environmental etc) with which they don't agree. Yes, they should stay within the bounds of the law, restrict their "opposition" to legal means, but to simply say "He's the boss, so therefore I must support him" is not true. Indeed, it even has undertones of a fascist nature and I'm reminded of some infamous autocratic regimes of the past and today (Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist North Korea, Communist China, Singapore) where the state called for obiedience and unqualified support from their population. It's just not right.
"We were only following orders"...
If the President, no matter who he is, began to implement policies that you fundamentally disagreed with, are you saying you would support him simply because of the position he holds? That's nonesense. Say he decided he wanted to invade other countries, withdraw from the United Nations, abandon tax for corporations that donated large amounts of funds to his political party, began implementing Christian fundamentalist social policy etc. Any number of hypothetical actions could end up in many people withdrawing their support.
Automatic support and obedience, and the abandonment of political opposition, are not good things. They would damage your society more than you think.
Mr Mephisto
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