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Back to the Forum Archives In my previous essay, I listed what I consider to be the major problems we face. These are all different forms of threats to Western civilization and hence to our democracy. Briefly these are the Muslim extremists, Christian extremists, Hebrew extremists, and a Christian extremist madman in the White House. Now, let us consider world history. From the perspective of history, much that was murky begins to make more sense. My study of history has forced me to take an elevated view of these events. There has been an ongoing religious war that is older than recorded history. This war began when Ishmael was kicked out of the tent by Abraham and it has been going on ever since. What is going on now is simply the continuation of that same war. The Crusades were an overt part of that. Right now it is again very overt, but the war has always occupied the collective unconscious of the participants. On one side we have the extremists of the twelve tribes of Ishmael. On the other we have the Jewish extremists and the Christian extremists. No one is fooling any thoughtful people here. Many will pooh, pooh the idea that Christianity is really nothing more than Judaism, but it is. Some people will shout and finger point about the differences in ritual and practice between Judaism and Christianity, but those are surface differences. Rituals and practices vary from place to place and time to time, even within a particular sect. Christianity is Judaism with one extra character. In the overall scheme, that character caused nothing more than a name change. The fundamental superstitions did not change at all. There was no effect on the behavior or beliefs of the rabble. These superstitions all came out of the exact same tradition. Nothing essential has changed. In all particulars except one, these two religions are identical. So, the Christians were natural allies of the Hebrew nation right from the beginning. They even thought of themselves as jews. Even when their thinking diverged the alliance continued. Hence, we really only face a single threat. That is the ongoing religious war. Our effort must be directed toward mitigating the effect of that. The only question becomes how? When we consider the problems we face and what we can do about them the first thing to decide is what is important to us? Once we know that we will also know what is not important to us. That seems obvious, but we often get lost in the thicket when we don't spell it out. Surly we should act to preserve the things that are important to us. We should not give a big snort about the things on the second list, no matter how loudly our madmen shout. We do not have extra energy or resources to waste at this time. Let me list some of the things I believe are important. First would be my home and my family, of course. I speak of their safety, their well being, and their future. Next is my community in all of its forms. That is the local, state, and national communities. Like it or not we are all one people. We are dependent upon a functioning community for our way of life. Along with that, I care about justice, the rule of law. Without a viable democracy to implement it, justice becomes only a word. Currently, we are on a razor's edge as concerns a viable democracy and the rule of law. I don't know that we can prioritize any of these things. I believe they are completely interdependent. We cannot have security in any of them without having all of them co-functioning. The basis of all of this is the viable representative democracy. I have written about this many times. Representative democracy, I believe, is the best tool for securing all of the things I care about. You need only look at the difference between nations operating under a democracy of some form and all of the other nations. The contrast is obvious. All other forms of government stink in comparison. So I will vigorously defend democracy whenever and wherever it is necessary. Yes, even unto death if necessary, like any other American citizen soldier. I did my time in Korea and if needed I will show up again. I expect others to do the same. As to defending democracy, It seems to me the first order of business is to get the madman and his gang of four out of the White House. We must do this before he starts another irrational foreign adventure. Those five people are the biggest threat to democracy, justice, and the rule of law we have ever faced. They have run roughshod over our constitution and they have got us bogged down in a totally unnecessary war. The mess in Iraq will not go away, but we should act to prevent another insane action like it. Bush is already making threatening noises towards Syria and Iran. This is following the same progression he used to get us primed for Iraq. It is a step by step procedure of indicting a country and making a case for invading it. The next step is to pretend those phantom weapons of mass destruction were moved and are hidden in Syria. That is the thing we must head off. We do not have the resources for that kind of insanity. At the same time, we cannot ignore the enormous threat to Western civilization posed by insane Islamic extremists. Like it or not, the presidents rhetoric notwithstanding, we really are at war. We are in the most deadly war we have ever had to deal with. We have been attacked and that assault will continue. The Islamic madmen have promised as much. They really mean to destroy Western civilization. So regardless of good thoughts and frontal lobes we need a standing army. We will need that army at least until the threat is neutralized, and, yes, I propose using our young people to staff it. I want young tough patriotic Americans to stand up and be counted. The problem is, I don't think enough will stand up without being compelled to do so. The truth is, most Americans now, like most people elsewhere, are not altruistic. They are wallowing hedonistic egocentric voyeurs. Just take a look at the television offerings for goodness sake. In particular observe the advertisements. Think about why they do those stupid ads. They do them because they work. They are addressing the classic American mentality. These people do not use their frontal lobes at all. There is no convincing evidence they even have frontal lobes. Perhaps they have atrophied. These fools are easily manipulated and lead up the primrose path into foolishness and disaster. When they are lead by a madman we have all the elements of a complete debacle. We have to face that. Now I think we do need to remain young at heart and not lose our idealism, but we must temper that idealism with a good dose of reality. We must face the realities of the world. We cannot wish or pretend them away. There are warmongers on both sides and pacifists on both sides. We need not join any of them. We need not take a side. What we must do is solve the problems we face. We cannot do that by leading with hatred and attacking everything in sight. We must act thoughtfully and appropriately to the real problems. We will either respond appropriately or we will go the way of Rome. While the Mongol hordes beat at our borders we flounder about in total political and ethical disarray. We are vulnerable as hell. Misguided peaceniks are not helping us a bit. Peace-at-any-price is not a solution. There are many who want to lead with their hearts instead of thinking. This is just stupid. It is a recipe for disaster. Simplistic, altruistic notions are not going to solve these problems. Walt Disney, Sunday school twaddle does not wash in the real world. To try to be nice and pretend that everyone else will also be nice is immature wishful thinking. The Muslim fundamentalists intend to destroy us. They have made that very clear. Those people are just as insane as Jerry Falwell and his Christian fundamentalist cronies along with our president. We can be successful or we can be destroyed. Those are our only options. Since my long term goal is to help create an ethical society, I cannot take sides in any snorting contests. I can, however, take a position and hold a view. When the Jews kill an Arab child, that is murder. When a Christian fundamentalist murders a doctor, that is murder. When American soldiers kill an Iraqi prisoner, that also is murder. When the Muslim extremists attack the World Trade Center, that also was murder on a large scale. It was also an attack on Western civilization and inadvertently on Democracy. After considerable though I still consider representative democracy to offer the best hope of creating an ethical society. Therefore Western civilization, the natural home of democracy, must be preserved. That means it must be defended. I cannot do much about the madman in the White House except advocate his removal, but I can speak out about defending democracy. Defending democracy means ending or at least controlling this insane religious war. Even if we were able to get out if Iraq, we still have Afghanistan and we still have the ongoing religious war between the children of Ishmael and the children of Isaac. To face those threats we now have a poorly trained and poorly equipped military. That is what must change. So long as there is a threat to Western civilization we must maintain a military readiness. I will stand by that and my essays on the Universal Draft. Now, in discussing threats I left out one country. Some people
will insist that North Korea is also a threat. I will get to
that and to unjustified military actions in a future essay.
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