Good and Evil
The United States is once again experiencing unprecedented growth with low inflation. While General Motors and Delphi are making the headlines, other businesses have been prospering. US Steel, for example, is making historically high profits. The restaurants are packed. Travel is up. Unemployment is at historic lows. Americans truly have much for which to be grateful. Maybe that is why we have our heads in the sand.
Since the end of World War II, the United States has enjoyed 60 years of peace and prosperity. That isn’t to say that there haven’t been hot wars re: Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. But large scale conflicts of world proportions have not been experienced by successive generations. Not in any of the above three conflicts have Americans at home been asked to sacrifice anything: not fuel; not sugar; not rubber; not nylon; only American lives in such statistically low numbers that the loss on the general population was barely felt at all. Are 45,000 dead Americans in Vietnam a small number? More Americans died in the three day battle of Gettysburg than the entire Vietnam War. Still, it is 100% tragedy for the families of these brave warriors, much braver than me.
It was the Cold War, ironically, that kept the nature and types of conflicts under control. While it would allow for “skirmishes”, as they were euphemistically referenced, events were ultimately controlled by the two super powers, the United States and the USSR. The rest of the world was deliberately and effectively kept under their thumbs. No tin dictator could exist or function without the imprimatur of either the US or USSR whose actions,in turn, were tempered by fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Was it scary? Yes, as anyone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis can tell you. But, at the end of the day, we all slept pretty well while the ICBM’s were pointed at each other’s heads.
Now, the United States faces a different enemy. It is more dangerous because there is no center. Radical Islam is an amorphous body that slithers around the world, infecting various populations in ways that Americans can’t comprehend. We have lost the ability to see evil in the world. In our secularized, progressive society, we even question the existence of true good and true evil. Everything is relative. We are "accepting" of other cultures.
In many eyes, the United States is evil. Those of that ilk are blinded from the truth of the horror of radical Islam. It is beyond my understanding how progressive liberalism can look at the United States and look at radical Islam and pick them as the good guys and us as the bad guys. Radical Islam is the antithesis of progressive liberalism. The only explanation for this developing leftist-fascist alliance is the old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
The leftists in the United States and Europe should read the history of Germany in the early 1930’s. Otherwise good people aligned themselves with Hitler, viewing him as a means to an end, but ultimately a buffoon. They felt they could control him once they achieved their objective. Instead, Hitler consumed those who elected him to office, and then almost the entire civilized world.
1930’s Germany didn’t recognize evil. When are we?
Since the end of World War II, the United States has enjoyed 60 years of peace and prosperity. That isn’t to say that there haven’t been hot wars re: Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. But large scale conflicts of world proportions have not been experienced by successive generations. Not in any of the above three conflicts have Americans at home been asked to sacrifice anything: not fuel; not sugar; not rubber; not nylon; only American lives in such statistically low numbers that the loss on the general population was barely felt at all. Are 45,000 dead Americans in Vietnam a small number? More Americans died in the three day battle of Gettysburg than the entire Vietnam War. Still, it is 100% tragedy for the families of these brave warriors, much braver than me.
It was the Cold War, ironically, that kept the nature and types of conflicts under control. While it would allow for “skirmishes”, as they were euphemistically referenced, events were ultimately controlled by the two super powers, the United States and the USSR. The rest of the world was deliberately and effectively kept under their thumbs. No tin dictator could exist or function without the imprimatur of either the US or USSR whose actions,in turn, were tempered by fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Was it scary? Yes, as anyone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis can tell you. But, at the end of the day, we all slept pretty well while the ICBM’s were pointed at each other’s heads.
Now, the United States faces a different enemy. It is more dangerous because there is no center. Radical Islam is an amorphous body that slithers around the world, infecting various populations in ways that Americans can’t comprehend. We have lost the ability to see evil in the world. In our secularized, progressive society, we even question the existence of true good and true evil. Everything is relative. We are "accepting" of other cultures.
In many eyes, the United States is evil. Those of that ilk are blinded from the truth of the horror of radical Islam. It is beyond my understanding how progressive liberalism can look at the United States and look at radical Islam and pick them as the good guys and us as the bad guys. Radical Islam is the antithesis of progressive liberalism. The only explanation for this developing leftist-fascist alliance is the old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
The leftists in the United States and Europe should read the history of Germany in the early 1930’s. Otherwise good people aligned themselves with Hitler, viewing him as a means to an end, but ultimately a buffoon. They felt they could control him once they achieved their objective. Instead, Hitler consumed those who elected him to office, and then almost the entire civilized world.
1930’s Germany didn’t recognize evil. When are we?
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