Veterans Day blather
We had lots of sentimental blather, as always, about how we're supposed to be thankful to veterans for our freedoms. Here are just a few problems:
- If the people talking like this were real patriots, they would pay some attention to the founding fathers of our country. Those guys warned with one voice that standing armies destroy our freedom, not that they protect it. The American armed forces, if the founders are to be believed, are a dire menace to our freedom, not its defenders. And the founders are definitely to be believed. We've reached the point where the generals openly dispute policy with the civilian government, which caves. I won't say that Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Adams would have been shocked, because they foresaw this and would only be disappointed, not astonished. But the war lovers and militarists ought to have the decency to confess themselves to be the enemies of the American republic that they are, instead of wrapping themselves in the flag as they go about promoting its destruction.
- I understand why American "patriots" agree with Chairman Mao that political power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and since they equate American power with freedom, they therefore suppose that freedom comes from the barrel of a gun. But somehow it doesn't work out that way. Christians at least ought to agree with Paul that liberty is where the Spirit of the Lord is , not where a soldier with a gun is.
- We don't protect our own freedom by going thousands of miles away to trash other people's homes and to rob them of their lives and freedom, and to impose corrupt puppet dictatorships on them. Since what goes around comes around, sending American troops everywhere to terrorize and dominate people can only result in the loss our own freedom, since freedom is for those who grant freedom to others, not for those that enslave others.
- Finally, the truth is that getting our soldiers killed all over the world in order to dominate others is a pagan ritual of human sacrifice. It's pretty obvious that all the sentimental blather about what heroes they are is to over-compensate for the truth - the American people cynically sacrifice the lives of their professional military in wars that they don't even want to think about themselves, never mind fight in, so that they can enjoy their soft lives on the backs of the foreigners so beaten into submission. It's easy to drown such self-knowledge in an empty emotional bath. If people really want to do right by these men and women, how about bringing them back home and giving them real and honorable work to do, instead of sending them abroad to be killers, vandals, and rapists in places like Okinawa that they have no business to be in?
Pagans are always burning their children in the fire to their gods and feeling holy about it, thus hiding themselves from their own blood-guilt. But Christians ought to abstain from this lust of the world. Our call is to walk in the truth, which has nothing to do with the sentimental worship of worldly arms and the reliance on the shed blood of men to give us life and freedom. God provided that through the death of Jesus on a cross and his resurrection, and for a Christian, that's enough. Death which does not involve resurrection is of Satan the lord of the flies, not of God, who is the God of the living, not of the dead.
- If the people talking like this were real patriots, they would pay some attention to the founding fathers of our country. Those guys warned with one voice that standing armies destroy our freedom, not that they protect it. The American armed forces, if the founders are to be believed, are a dire menace to our freedom, not its defenders. And the founders are definitely to be believed. We've reached the point where the generals openly dispute policy with the civilian government, which caves. I won't say that Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Adams would have been shocked, because they foresaw this and would only be disappointed, not astonished. But the war lovers and militarists ought to have the decency to confess themselves to be the enemies of the American republic that they are, instead of wrapping themselves in the flag as they go about promoting its destruction.
- I understand why American "patriots" agree with Chairman Mao that political power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and since they equate American power with freedom, they therefore suppose that freedom comes from the barrel of a gun. But somehow it doesn't work out that way. Christians at least ought to agree with Paul that liberty is where the Spirit of the Lord is , not where a soldier with a gun is.
- We don't protect our own freedom by going thousands of miles away to trash other people's homes and to rob them of their lives and freedom, and to impose corrupt puppet dictatorships on them. Since what goes around comes around, sending American troops everywhere to terrorize and dominate people can only result in the loss our own freedom, since freedom is for those who grant freedom to others, not for those that enslave others.
- Finally, the truth is that getting our soldiers killed all over the world in order to dominate others is a pagan ritual of human sacrifice. It's pretty obvious that all the sentimental blather about what heroes they are is to over-compensate for the truth - the American people cynically sacrifice the lives of their professional military in wars that they don't even want to think about themselves, never mind fight in, so that they can enjoy their soft lives on the backs of the foreigners so beaten into submission. It's easy to drown such self-knowledge in an empty emotional bath. If people really want to do right by these men and women, how about bringing them back home and giving them real and honorable work to do, instead of sending them abroad to be killers, vandals, and rapists in places like Okinawa that they have no business to be in?
Pagans are always burning their children in the fire to their gods and feeling holy about it, thus hiding themselves from their own blood-guilt. But Christians ought to abstain from this lust of the world. Our call is to walk in the truth, which has nothing to do with the sentimental worship of worldly arms and the reliance on the shed blood of men to give us life and freedom. God provided that through the death of Jesus on a cross and his resurrection, and for a Christian, that's enough. Death which does not involve resurrection is of Satan the lord of the flies, not of God, who is the God of the living, not of the dead.
posted by Peter Attwood at 11/16/2010 02:32:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home