Tom Cotton’s picky logic

I generally respect my fellow veterans, but I must call bullshit on Tom Cotton, the U.S. Senator from Arkansas.  He said recently that there would be some sacrifice for Americans in the current trade war with China, but that sacrifice would be “pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas that are fallen heroes that are laid to rest in Arlington make.”

Cotton was in the Army, volunteering for the infantry.  He pulled tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He received the Combat Infantry Badge and the Bronze Star.  I give him his props for that.

But it grieves me that he makes such a huge logical jump on the backs of the U.S. war dead.  Did they not pay dearly enough?  Why drag them into this?  It just further lessens an archetype diluted by America’s increasingly specious conflicts.

It also minimizes those paying dearly today.  Witness the farmers who are in danger of losing their properties as Trump “squabbles” with Xi Jinping.  An Iowa farmer told CNN yesterday that the tariffs could cost him $150,000 this year.

So Cotton guilt trips them with the deaths of others also caught up in circumstances they had no control over.  He likely has national political ambitions, because he seems to be following the Trump arc, which starts with the belief that patriotism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.

And, Tom, as a former English major, I must also point out that your grammar is sub-par.