This was from the Christmas Eve Mallard Fillmore cartoon:
In an age in which Christians around the world are persecuted, tortured, and killed for daring to utter their Lord's name...Thank God for a Nation in which people of all religions may worship in freedom.
The country we live in, no, blessed with, is truly wonderful. This nation of ours has freedoms that most of the world does not enjoy. One of those is the freedom to worship (or not) according to your conscience. However, there are those who want to force you to bow to a black rock in the middle of a foreign land five times a day. If you don't, then your life is worth nothing.
I watched the Glenn Beck special in which Islamic Extremism was featured. The images presented in this program as created by the Muslim clergy, news, and entertainment media were most disturbing. It's not easy to watch crowds being whipped into a frenzy, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Nor is it reassuring that people considered to be "infidels" are not considered to be people, but must be killed wherever they are found. And let's not talk about what they really think of the Jewish people and Israel simply because it is so dehumanizing as to be ridiculous.
What bothers me the most is that our media ignores the reality of this threat. We do not hear of or read about very often the anti-American & anti-Israeli rhetoric, calling for the destruction of our respective countries. Nor is it brought to the forefront that they truly hate us with all of their hearts, and wish nothing but death for us.
This hate runs deep. Talking will not solve our differences. This is a belief system that does not have room for compromise, not even for slight differences within their own religion. Otherwise, why are the Shiites and Sunnis killing each other in Iraq? If it were otherwise, the word "tolerance" would be used, not abused.
And yet, there are those who think that the United States should leave Iraq, ignore the terrorist threat of radical Islam, and bury this country's head in the sand. Indeed, they wish to withdraw American influence from the world and reduce this country's status in the world to that of a third-rate nation instead of the superpower that this country truly is. I thought that Bill Whittle in his essay, Power, expressed it best:
Those that would have us disarm, withdraw, apologize and retreat make the assumption that by removing American Power from the world, the planet will become a harmonious village of diversity and mutual respect. Remove American capitalism, and the world’s people will trade solar cars for indigenous beads, our European moral betters will hand over their cash to the third world until all are perfectly equal, and everyone will live in a sustainable ecological paradise. Remove American cultural power and Britney will be replaced with Beethoven, and an exquisite and reasonably priced Pate de Foi Gras Existentialist Meal can be had at a corner drive-in where the former McDonald’s once stood.
This is utter nonsense. It has never been true for a single page of the history of the Damned Human Race. There has never -– never –- been a day in human history when some form of power has not flooded the world, or competed to do so; and those times when the power was most one-sided reveal themselves to be the times of greatest relative peace, stability, and advancement of that quaint notion known as civilization.
This is not merely a European construct. We see this iron rule in Inca and Aztec histories in South America, in Shaka’s Zulu nation, in Chinese empires and Japanese Shogunates, Native American tribal relations, and wherever else we turn our eyes.
The idea that all would be well if only America would retreat from the world and stay at home is a pernicious and seductive one. It appeals not only to those that hunger after the freedom to do mischief in our absence as it does to our natural sense of isolationism. It has been the mantra of communists, totalitarians and elitists of every vile stripe for well over a hundred years. It is utterly and completely wrong. Political power has never been removed from the world -– it has only been replaced. And so our choice –- now pay attention you No Blood For Oil types -– is not between power and no power. It is a choice only of what kind of power will fill that vacuum. Chinese? Russian? European? We have seen all of these before. The horrors they have inflicted, with far less absolute power than the US wields, do not leave me pining for those alternatives. Someone is going to be the world power, or tear the world apart fighting for it. And no matter how hard we may wish it, the winner will not be a Blindfolded Jury of Archangels.
And yet, we blunder on down a path that leads to self-destruction. Our media and politicians make excuses for Islamic terrorists, thinking that they are misunderstood and that we, as a country, need to understand why they hate us. That way, we can change so that they will "like us," and will stop the killing.
Unfortunately, the killing has been going on for centuries, and will not stop anytime soon. A religion that goes ballistic over cartoons and cannot stand scrutiny is a religion that doesn't need excuses, but accountability for it's actions and justification for its existence. To state that it is a religion of peace and yet foment violence against non-believers is hypocritical in the extreme.
A famous American said in a speech:
"We, the American People… find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us…We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them -- they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader…to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
"How then shall we perform it? -- At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? -- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln, Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.
Whether we like it or not, I believe that the Islamic terrorists are going to do their damnest to make this into a religious war from whatever it can be called now. They will use the classic good vs. evil argument, an us-vs.-them conflict in the name of a jihad (religious war, for those of you in Rio Linda). They will plot, plan, and execute attacks that will cause large numbers of casualties. And the elites idiots among us will wring their hands crying, "We don't understand! We were talking!" Understand this, you Brie-eaters - there are people in the world that want to kill you just for the reason that you exist!! And we still seem to pursue the idiotic mantra of appeasement to those who wish nothing more than to destroy our country and subjugate us to their religion.
I know that this isn't the traditional Christmas Eve post, but Christ stated:
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." - Matthew 10:34, NIV
Slightly out of context with the passage, but it does illustrate that there will be conflict & war brought in the name of religion and belief in God & Christ. And I believe that this war has come upon us, although slowly and very low key until recently.
I do pray that I am wrong, that reason will prevail among our political leaders and those in the Middle East. That there will truly be Peace on Earth. But that will only happen if everyone decides that it will be so.
May everyone find Peace within their own hearts, and so enlighten the world.
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