Article: "Compared with the upheavals of the early 20th century, the challenges we face today — whether as families and individuals or as societies and nations — are almost laughably trivial. Have psychologists who tell us that accident witnesses need grief counselling forgotten about Holocaust survivors and PoWs in Burma? Do environmentalists really believe that global warming is the greatest threat ever faced by Western civilisation? Do judges understand what they are doing when they extend doctrines of human rights to gay adoptions? Can politicians honestly speak of terrorism today in the same breath as the threat from Communists and Nazis to previous generations? Anyone who makes such comparisons is insulting our intelligence, as well as our courageous forebears."
Very good points all around, and a good article. Like I told a friend yesterday, you live in america. How bad can your life be?
Hat tip to Matt, I forgot this the first time around.
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6 comments:
That looks kind of familiar.
Though you are right, we have the best darn government in the world, and SHOULD have the happiest people on the world, it dosen't quite work that way. I've talked to quite a few missionary's and one, for instance, said that after visiting africa and other places, on her way home she passed through LA, and there the people looked more hopeless and without joy then in all the other places she'd been.
Sometimes affluence can be deadly bane spiritually. After having traveled in Russia and Belarus, and talking with people who lived under communism, it did make me glad that I live in America in a physical sense. However, the Christians I met there had a fervancy, simplicity, purity and faith unlike any I've ever seen. They've had to depend utterly on God in the midst of the most horrific persecution.
We don't know what that means here. At least not yet. I think it's coming.
"Can politicians honestly speak of terrorism today in the same breath as the threat from Communists and Nazis to previous generations?"
Although I think I can agree with most of the article--at least the excerpt you posted--I cannot agree with this. When we talk about terrorists, we're talking about psychopaths who may be able to get hold of nuclear and biological weapons--truly, weapons of MASS destruction. Then, rather than going after our military, they very well might go straight towards unarmed, innocent citizens--including women and children. They go behind enemy lines, easily infiltrating--if they so desire--an open border, with the intent and willpower to blow themselves up in order to kill as many others as possible, with the promise of a ridiculous amount of virgins awaiting them on the other side of death.
Though the war on terror probably does not way as heavily and as closely to a random, individual American citizen's mind as perhaps the Cold War or World Wars did, and although we haven't been attacked since 9/11 and the death toll pales in comparison to other wars, I don't think it is astute to downplay--even in comparison--the war we are currently in.
P.S. I finally posted again... (I meant to put that on my last comment.)
One difficulty in this kind of "war" is that under traditional war, you had a nation-state and an army with uniforms and front lines. These guys are more like street thugs who fade into the shadows in true guerilla fashion. I think it is winnable, but ruthlessness is the only way to do it, and Western nations shy away from ruthlessness these days. Yes, it sounds horrible, but I think it's true. These people place no value on human life.
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