On Nov 10, 2009, at 9:30 PM, CathyM wrote:
> Whether we had to go over there or not is sort of mute, but being > the world economic leader and how the world depends on the oil of > the middle east…this decision was made by more powerful people then > me in the economic game (notice I did not say politics…that is a > side game of the real power players…the people with the money who > are not politicians). We "depend on" oil from the Middle East out of choices we have made. Just like people complain about all the crap being sold to us by the Chinese and how it is ruining our economy and then go to Wal-Mart and buy more of it without stopping to make a different choice or do something to change the circumstances. We have been seduced by *convenience* and backed ourselves into a corner and then say "We have no choice!" Bull pockey. There are always choices, we just don't happen to like some of them. I am certain that many honest Germans worked as prison and camp guards under the Third Reich saying "I had no choice," but the fact is that some people did make different choices even if they died for it. Our choices were not quite so stark, but they were no less choices as well as opportunities to show courage, ingenuity, sacrifice, and restraint in our dealings. We DECIDED that it was easier to invade other countries and KILL innocent people instead of changing our own ways. How is that different from any other armed robber or two-bit thug? How are we a victim of circumstance? Is Christ, when we get to kneel before his throne going to ask us, "So, who won?" or were we required to act at a different level and take responsibility for ourselves. > What got me was the paragraph that Eric wrote that sounded just > like Obama apologizing for the USA interfering in WWI, in WWII, and > in other wars. That these people would not come over and Kill us if > we did not interfere in their countries. We need to have the guts, personally and collectively, to take a long look at who we are and what has gotten us here. The wonder and grace of America is not what we have accomplished: we have screwed up, sometimes spectacularly. Rather, it is in what we have constantly striven for even when we have failed. We have demonstrated throughout our short history a constant dedication to ideals that other people thought were base and worthless: that everyone has the Right to decide for themselves and that, somehow, out of the mass of often fragmented and petty humanity, a country based on that ideal could actually work. Many of us have died for that ideal, sometimes on opposite sides of a battlefield. We did not always (or even often) have ANSWERS to our questions, but the very fact that we felt they were important enough to die, to sacrifice, to kill just TO ASK is what makes us different. That and that alone. I do not think we need to "apologize" for WWI or WWII, but I think that it does us no credit either. We could have remained out of both wars. "Making the world safe for Democracy" was always a fraud. We fought against Hitler and, sure, he was a horrendous blight on the world, but so was Stalin who we supported. Why was Stalin "Safe for Democracy?" We stopped the war machine of the Japanese Empire, but unleashed the horrors of nuclear war. We were attacked by Japan, but we had been selling war materials to the British, equipping French insurgents, and helping the Russians for some time. We were never 'neutral'. We imprisoned thousands of Japanese Americans in our own internment camps, including the families of decorated military officers serving in our own military. And yes, thousands upon thousands of graves of American veterans dot Normandy, the Philippines, and other places. It is always our soldiers who bear the highest cost and often they are the only ones among us who behave with honor. Our soldiers bought GI bonds to purchase their own equipment with their own pay to end up broken and destitute after years of service in the bowels of Hell... just like our soldiers today coming back from Iraq who never are paid what they are owed, who are mistreated in second-rate hospitals, and left to fend for themselves, who are committing suicide in the highest numbers of veterans from any war in our history. Is that "supporting the troops"? > Well, due to agreements made by politicians that have shrunk the > world economics (many of which I did not agree with but have been > drug along into and watched our agriculture suffer due to it), a > leader must come to the front. I used to think that it would be the > USA, but at the rate that we are being sold down the river for > apologizing for our existence by people everywhere…some other > country will come out into the front and then we will be the third > world nation that so many desire us to be. Does a leader need to "come to the front" among the families in your neighborhood or can we meet and work together as equals? Where does Christ say that we need to put the Gentiles under the sword for their own good because "someone has to lead"? Is taking the moral high ground and acting elitist "making the world safe for Democracy" or should we mind our own business, keep our own boundaries, help and trade WHERE ASKED, leading BY EXAMPLE? Yes, the idea that they would not come here to kill us if we had not interfered in their countries is EXACTLY what I am suggesting. We screwed up. They screwed up. We screwed up. They screwed up. We screwed up. In an endless tragedy going back centuries. When does it stop? When does someone say "enough"? Maybe they are not big enough to do that, but we have demonstrated that we are not either. If one of them comes here and threatens my family, I will defend myself and those I love, but I will not be particularly surprised, I will not hate him. I will not attack him preemptively or go to his country to do so, and I will not feel 'justified' or 'righteous' because I know that I am not. Maybe because I am not interested in striking first I will lose my life. So be it, There are many things in life worse than death. I have lived through some of them. I am more concerned with living my life well than in how long I live it. Sometimes I, like America, screw up, but it is what I strive for and I intend to keep on doing so. I hope that America comes up with the guts to do so as well. > I am tired also, but I will go and look up the scriptures that you > suggest and reread them. But I stand by what I said…I will not > apologize that we have had to go over there and become involved in a > fight that is not ours and yet we cannot withdraw from or be seen as > being weak by the very people that we are fighting and fighting for > due to their way of societal strategies of power. > The very hate, that you are talking of, of being part of a group, is > being used against us, but we are to apologize for feeling this > way. Why? It is okay for them to feel this hate because we > supposedly “invaded” their territory, and when they invade us…we are > to turn our back because we “deserve” it. This is what I will not > apologize for. Not with all of the lives that this country has > given to the world to defend the rights of freedom. No, I will not > apologize if I tend to lump the fanatics into a group that I fear. Yes, they wrong us: "Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you." I don't remember "...unless they are really annoying." as part of that verse. I have looked for it many, many times :-) That does not, in my mind, mean that we do not defend ourselves or others under our care when we have to. As Bonhoefer said, if a maniac is driving a car through a crowd, we do not merely have a responsibility to care for those who are broken, we have a responsibility to try to stop the maniac. But it does mean that we do so with restraint and without hate. We shoot to live, to stop the evil, not to kill, and when it is over, we forgive and go on, perhaps even hold the hand of the dying man we just shot and pray for their forgiveness... and our own. I believe that is what we are asked to do, what we are CHALLENGED to do and that it is not meant to be easy. Vengeance has no place in defense. Hate is a distraction. Vengeance is violence returned with interest compounded on sorrow. Why leave your children with THAT debt? Sincerely, Eric Vought "Faith does not absolve us from trying to understand our world and make moral distinctions with the eyes and brain given us. Religion is as much responsibility as direction: Duty not Distinction." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ This is a Free Speech forum. The owner of this list assumes no responsibility for the intellectual or emotional maturity of its members. If you do not like what is being said here, filter it to trash, ignore it or leave. If you leave, learn how to do this for yourself. If you do not, you will be here forever. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
