The Chief Justices are deciding right now whether the Mojave Cross should be allowed to stand on government ground, or if it constitutes a violation of the second amendment. (Go read about it here.)

The argument goes that the cross is a war memorial, and the challenge from the pro-cross camp is that it honors all war dead, not just Christian war dead. Damned absurd, of course, but I’d like to address something a little more basic:

How does a few tons of concrete in the middle of the desert honor anybody? Honor? What is honor?

I suppose someone will tell me that a person looks at the monument, remembers that soldiers died fighting for our country, and should be thankful in some capacity. This is something I have never understood. What’s the good of that “thankfulness.” Does it make people act better—and who’s to say what “better” even means? Do people look at a war memorial, consider the sacrifice that soldiers made, and choose therefore to pay their taxes on time? To work as volunteers? To vote for the more “patriotic” congressional candidate? (ugh).

To me, the whole thing smacks of appeasement (to dredge up a word from the anti- anti-Bush camp of a few years ago). Seems to me that folks who’d send other people’s sons to be ripped to shreds by enemy gunfire for the sake of political expediency and economic excess do so at the behest of “honor,” which is paltry payment. If the war is so damned important, why aren’t the decision-makers going? Why aren’t their sons going?

I say, to “honor” the war dead, instead of putting up a cross in the middle of nowhere, how about we create some war-memorial jobs. Heck, if Verizon can sponsor a football stadium, what’s the problem with The World War II Veterans Honorary Park Cleanup Program. Or the Vietnam Veteran’s Children’s Education Foundation.

Yes, it’s a mouthful. But at least we’d get real benefit from it. Compare that mouthful to the hundreds of pages the Chief Justices are going to produce in deciding the fate of the Mojave Cross.