The most recent episode of barbaric evil perpetrated by Hamas on the American-Israeli hostages serves as a painful reminder that evil does exist in this world, it is both present and potent, and it will not go quietly into the good night. The hostage slayings will be addressed later in this piece, but for now…just a comment or two on evil.
In
America today, it is not uncommon for our political factions to label each
other as evil. I think this is an unfortunate
and exaggerated overstatement. In fact,
it is perhaps the case that the words evil
and hate are the most misused and
overused words in our daily vocabulary.
Both words fall easily off the tongue when we allow ourselves to get
worked up over something we feel strongly about. But to me, these words should represent the
epitome, the last resort, the ultimate description of the things or actions we
are labeling. They should be
reserved…held in abeyance for the most
terrible things.
As
are many boomers and old school advocates, I am perpetually offended by the
common use of the f-bomb in our culture and society. I am not a prude or an innocent; I am far too
generous with my own obscenities. But
there are times when it seems to me that there is a specific number of f-bombs
that must exist in an episode or
movie and if that number is not reached upon completion of the production, then
they simply go back through and sprinkle a few more to meet the quota. I am convinced that as a whole, we as a
people have become quite desensitized to many practices that simply do not
reflect our better qualities and judgments.
And while older citizenry
becomes desensitized, our younger
citizenry is organically immersed into them and simply accept them as common
behavior. This is not a good thing. We certainly do not want to become
desensitized to evil and hate.
The
terms evil and hate should be reserved for things like the holocaust, the
killing fields of Cambodia, the genocidal wars in Africa, serial killers,
pedophiles, the treatment of the Uyghurs in China, the abomination that was…and is…the various forms of slavery
throughout the world, the atrocities of the wars that are all too common across
our globe, and…to bring it current…the
actions of Hamas in the Middle East today.
Donald
Trump, Kamala Harris, and the parties they represent are terribly flawed
individuals and their organizations purport and support some truly radical
ideas; but as serious as these things are and as consequential as they might
be, they should not rise to the extreme emotional level of evil and hate. Now I must admit that some of the
progressive, pro-choice positions on late-term abortions come mighty, mighty close to evil; but I will
leave that discussion for another day.
Hate
is the fuel that feeds evil. Hate is the
thought that leads to the action. Good
and evil will always exist in this world.
The dynamic that drives this co-existence is the fact that they do not always
exist in equal portions, at the same time, and in the same place. Simply put, this means that in those instances
where the advantage tips towards the power of evil, the disparate forces of
good in the world must consolidate in order to defeat the evil or…evil will prevail. Many times, it seems that the trigger that initiates
that consolidation is difficult to pull.
Would the holocaust have been stymied had the Nazis not bombed England,
brutalized the French, starved the Russians, unleashed the U-boats on American
vessels...and brought them all into the conflict? The trigger was pulled. How did the genocide in Cambodia and Africa
proceed without that trigger being
pulled? Have the nations in the world
today reached the point where the only evil that must be repulsed is the evil
that enters upon your own border…or your own home?
Territorial
aggression by one country upon another may not, in and of itself, rise to the
level of evil and hate; but history
has shown us…and the present reminds us…that evil and hate are inextricably woven into the aspects of territorial aggression
and war. America would not exist
today had not France and Spain given our ancestors the resources necessary to
win their war for independence. I will
argue that the precious blood of American soldiers should not be spilled in
Ukraine; but I will equally advocate that we should give the Ukrainians the
resources they need to fight for their
own liberty. Is it expensive? Hell yes…weapons of war cost lots and lots of
money. But look at the lives we lead
today in our homeland and compare that to the daily struggle for simple
survival that Ukrainian men, women, and children are facing every single day of their lives. We worry
about the price of gas, bread, and milk.
They wonder if they can even
find some gas, bread, and milk. We
grudgingly ship missiles so Ukraine might defend itself, and then dictate where
it can and cannot aim them. Does this make any sense? Can we not bear, as a nation, the costs to help
preserve the ideals of freedom, liberty, and good in this world when the moments arise? Have we lost the intestinal fortitude
necessary to stand up and call out wrongs when we see them?
Israel
is about 290 miles tall and about 85 miles wide. Israel is smaller than the state of
Massachusetts and about one-fifth the size of my home state Kentucky. It is
fighting for its very survival on three different fronts: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah
on the north, and the Houthis to the south.
The government of Israel is based on essentially the same ideology that
is found in our Constitution. I marvel
at people who say Israel is occupying
Gaza. They do not want to be in Gaza.
They want Gaza to exist and simply leave them alone. They are in Gaza because most of the people
in Gaza want to kill them and wipe them from the face of the earth. Hamas wants to butcher and maim
Israelis. They want to rape Israeli
women and daughters. And here is where
the evil comes in…they also rape
children, mothers, and grandmothers.
There is no place in Israel
that is safe from the attacks of their enemies.
They are fighting for their very survival. Do we support them? Yes; half-heartedly. We give them weapons and then try to dictate
how they are used. We try to steer their
policies by withholding essential resources they need to survive. We employ diplomatic
blackmail. The way the Biden/Harris
Administration has treated Israel is a damn shame: https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/david-friedman-joe-biden-benjamin-netanyahu/2024/09/02/id/1178770/
I
can only think of two words that would lead to a weaker foreign policy, less
global respect, and more vacuous American leadership tomorrow than what we have
today; those two words are: Kamala Harris.
At
some point, a call must be made. At some
point, people must stand for something, lest they fall for anything. At some point, tolerance must be reined in
for the cause of principle. If we as
people cannot stand up and recognize the evil
that Hamas is committing in the Middle East today, then we as people are not
worthy of a future world where the good rules over the evil. We will have failed the ultimate test. There are times to rationalize and
pragmatize. There are times to use
descriptors that are less volatile than evil and hate. What we are witnessing in the Middle East
today are not those times.
Evil is insatiable. Its ultimate goal is not victory in
individual battles or wars; it seeks total dominion. It seeks to eradicate any semblance of
good. We ignore the existence and
actions of evil in our world at our own peril...and place the future of our
children and our nation at risk.
https://www.thefp.com/p/bari-weiss-dark-tunnels-and-moral
https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/the-hostage-murders-and-the-new-threat/
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/joe-biden-hamas-murder/2024/09/01/id/1178689/
Recent internet and artificial intelligence
advancements represent amazing leaps in technology; but in many ways, they are
double-edged swords. As has been said
before…with great power comes great responsibility. The capabilities of technology seem to have
outrun the moral capacity of users to utilize them. Many of these abilities are easily
susceptible to corruptive use. And being
a new frontier, there are many areas where existing law has simply not
anticipated the need to regulate activities in these applications.
The
perils of censorship have suddenly become a concern that is present and
threatening. A very necessary, and
emotional, debate is taking place about how these new-found wonders will be
integrated into our culture and society.
Those debates need to be deliberate, transparent, wide-ranging, and
substantive. The discretionary parts of new law and new regulation do not need to be
loosely-written and left to the devices of government. Government is far too subject to corruption
and it simply cannot be trusted to wield this extraordinary power over access
to the private affairs of individuals.
Any legislation addressing these matters must be definitive and
thorough; stating in plain language what is and is not permissible.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/zuckerbergs-mea-culpa.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/the-zuckerberg-letter.php
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/the-zuckerberg-letter-analyze-this.php
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/09/02/why-musks-lawsuit-against-media-matters-matters/#more-222970
There
are two election battles seriously engaged at the present. One is the contest between Trump and Harris;
that one is sucking most of the oxygen out of the room. The
other one that is equally, if not more consequential, is the national battle
for election integrity. That battle
is being fought on varied fronts, moving from state to state, and occasionally
being addressed at the federal level in WDC.
As never before, these two issues
are joined at the hip.
As
I write this piece, it remains an open question as to whether or not there will
be a single presidential debate. While
Trump is publicly stating his wishes for three such debates, the Harris team
seems to be looking for an escape hatch from committing to even one debate. The Biden Basement Campaign Sequel featuring
Kamala Harris is playing out in real time and it will be quite interesting
to see how far it can go and how successful it will ultimately be.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/questions-for-kamala/
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/the-bash-paradox.php
https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/01/the-committees-candidate-harriss-inconsistent-campaign/
https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/02/the-ultimate-duping-of-america/
https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/02/can-they-really-reinvent-kamala-harris-in-70-days/
https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/29/new-rules-for-radicals-how-to-reinvent-kamala-harris/
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-weekend-jolt/why-a-platform-is-poison-for-kamala-harris/
Humor Alert! No one does it better than the Bee:
https://babylonbee.com/news/harris-team-asks-if-her-mic-can-just-be-muted-for-the-whole-debate
Why in the world the Democrats
would want to even mention the word Afghanistan
is beyond me. Yet in their obsession to
attack all things Trump, they have revived a story they should have avoided. By instigating the Arlington Cemetery photo
controversy, they have unwittingly resurrected for public scrutiny one of the
greatest failures of the Biden/Harris Administration.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-biden-administrations-complete-failure-in-afghanistan/
Nancy Pelosi has allowed her mask
to slip a bit and demonstrated a rare moment of complete honesty…belatedly so,
but true nonetheless: https://justthenews.com/government/congress/pelosi-expressed-regret-national-guard-wasnt-pre-positioned-protect-capitol-j6
Someday, someway, someone will
bring some degree of accountability to the mainstream media for their reckless
and irresponsible actions over the last couple of decades. Could
that someone be Sarah Palin?
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/09/the-daily-chart-blue-media-media-blues.php
https://www.jewishworldreview.com/0824/palin_WIN_nyt.php3
Lunacy continues to run rampant in
the Biden/Harris Administration’s handling of climate and energy issues. Here are a couple of interesting articles in
that area.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/26/american-natural-gas-is-americas-clean-energy-standard/
https://reason.com/2024/08/27/plastics-are-better-for-the-climate/
Haven’t talked about it in a while,
but there is no area of American life that needs a serious examination more
than that of our educational system: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/what-went-wrong-with-american-higher-education/
I often mention the total disregard and outright disdain that many liberal, progressive Democrats hold for our Constitution. Here is a perfect example: https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/30/human-rights-campaign-president-calls-for-rejection-of-the-little-piece-of-paper-of-the-founders/#more-222859
As bad as Biden has been, I will
still hold to my opinion that Obama was the worst American president in my
lifetime…thus far. No leader has squandered more good will and
opportunity than Obama and he threw it all away on the wings of personal ego
and vanity. The eternal irony that will
always attach to Obama is the fact that he, being the first black president,
did so much to set back and poison racial relations in America.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/is-it-okay-to-be-white/
When I first saw the headline for
this article (speech), I was reluctant to link it. After reading it, I lost that
reservation. Lest you think the article
is racially-insensitive, I suggest you engage in the following exercise. Read the article once more, only this time,
invert the words white and black; that is to think “black” when you read “white”. If you find one version acceptable while the
other version is not, then what might be the logic that drives that type of
thinking? Isn’t it fair to say that true
racial equality is quite simply the absence of racial identity?
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