Response

 

RMM responded eloquently and passionately to part 6 of the preceding postings on "The Promise of Peace," and I appreciate the depth of thought and the commentary.  That I did not immediately respond had much to do with processing what he wrote rather than agreeing or disagreeing with the content. 

I recognize the pain implicit in what he wrote, and I have written in earlier blogs about the dichotomy in the abortion debate and my own struggle in that arena.  But conflating abortion with war does not clarify the larger discussion of war itself.  I do think that he was agreeing with the premise of "The Promise of Peace," but wanted to use the broader discussion to get to his own impassioned critique of abortion.  He wrote "It must be conceded by all that war and it’s nature is subjective and variable. We speak of a war on drugs, on crime, on women, on poverty. But we all know that true war, real war involves human bodies and blood."

I respect RMM's advanced study in philosophy and theology, but I think the idea that war is "subjective and variable" is problematic, and one of the reasons war has for so long been considered an acceptable solution to human conflict.  It is true that we "speak of war on drugs, on crime, on women, on poverty," and I think that is corrupting to the horror of war and softens the idea of war, and allows us to think of war as just another way of dealing with a problem.

What goes on with the problems of drugs and crime, and the weight of patriarchal societies on women, and the plight of the poor in no way compares to what happened in World War II, or in the Civil War, or in any of the innumerable wars perpetrated for reasons and etceteras.  

The point of what I was trying to write is that war is NOT the answer to any of those problems.  War is a rejection of reason, it is a failure to find a solution, it is the law of the jungle at best and the desire of only the worst of those who claim to be human.

We have huge moral and ethical dilemmas to face in this 21st century as science advances the frontiers of cloning, genetic engineering and stem cell research, as we sort through the religious, philisophic and ethical boundaries on abortion, the right to life, the right to die, but equating those hard choices with those who suffered and died as a result of WWII is a disservice to their memory and a tacit validation of war as a useful and somewhat benign device for settling disputes.  

Living in the United States, RMM has the unique opportunity to make a difference in the moral and ethical decisions we make; there was no opportunity to voice that opposition in Nazi Germany.  There might have been but for WW1, which eventuallly led to WWII.

That is the point I was laboring to make.  And further, as long as we as a human race allow that war is a valid choice for solving problems, that larger rationale writ small underpins the right of each of us to solve our own problems in a similar fashion, with violence and force.

Our children learn from what we do, not what we profess.  Many of us have for a long time told our children to behave, to get along, to refrain from hitting and other forms of violence and destructive behavior, while at the same time embracing violence and destructive behavior on an international scale.  

There are better behaviors we could embrace and hence, teach, our children.  It would be interesting to see what the world would be like if we spent as much time preparing for peace as we spend preparing for war.  

Comments

[rmm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUf4FEiimwg

[rmm]

Lets learn this. Holcomb is fantastic.

[Roger German]

Randy...great video...I'm in favor...how's the picking hand?

[rmm]

Rog, I broke the dang thing 8 months back, snapped the first digit on my ring finger. So, we'll have to slow the pace of our songs down a beat or two. But first we gotta get you back to Nebraska.

[fey]

With what the world spends on war in one week, we could feed, clothe, house, save, nurture every human on the planet, born and unborn for an entire year.

[Roger German]

Randy...sorry to hear about the finger...when next in town if T and Curt don't have me working 24/7 perhaps we can pick a tune or two.
Fey...a sad, sorry state of affairs and too true. When I was in the Peace Corps my sister asked what Peace Corps did with all the money appropriated to it...at the time about $340 million per year. I told her we staff offices in 73 countries and support about 7,000 volunteers. I also pointed out that the cost of just ONE F22 Raptor jet was about $139 million...and the US had 183 of them on order at the time....and that's just one weapons system in one branch of service in one country...(a B-2 bomber comes in at about $2.2 billion without the optional faux leather interior...) seems that in the marketplace of ideas registered in cash, fear sells nicely...

[dkg]

War and abortion.
Most times decisions are made by those who have power and the price is paid by the innocent.

[rmm]

What is a culture of death? What takes place on a micro level when on the macro level the powers that be embrace a philosophic paradigm which blurs the axiom that all human life is to be respected, and protected? It sows seeds of a worldview confused, and inevitably one that no longer sees the value of a human life. It becomes much easier to take a human life, when the fabric, the leaders in the highest offices endorse barbarism. A gradual evolution takes place. One by one, one by one, here a little, there a little, the very definition of life is dropped into the vacuous sea of agnosticism. If the question of when life begins is above the pay grade of the leader of the country, who opposes the fetal pain bill, the born alive bill, and fully urges the practice of late term partial birth abortion procedures at every trimester of pregnancy, they why be shocked when life itself is cheapened? My friend fails to see that war on its macro spectrum is not dissociated with the effects of the wars that are absorbed by osmosis on the micro level. We can discuss the over hundred thousand men and women who died in all the wars our country has been involved in. In this culture of death the 55 million eliminations of the preborn are relegated to the convenient category of a mere debate. The erosion of the value of human life from conception to death has been on a mushrooming trajectory for years. Even our President’s words that if his daughter made a mistake; he would not what her punished with “a baby.” Indeed he doesn’t. If human life is not to be protected, if human life can be exterminated, if a government can endorse, even force it’s people to pay for abortion inducing drugs, then why are we so surprised that some high school kid can go off and kill 30 human beings. Further, how and why would be we so dense, so naïve to blame such things on guns? What a farce has been created. Guns kill, not people, that is the mentality. Theologically it should be known that every major religion on earth and many minor ones reject abortion as a sin against God and man, or something to be undertaken only under the most special circumstances. In politically correct America today, those circumstances include human convenience. Furthermore, I somehow can’t recall the blog where my eloquent friend details his conflict with this cultural sacrament. I’m wondering now if he has addressed it as thoroughly and often as he has the scourge of war? It is not popular to defend human life, and the left particularly seems to have championed the galloping procedure of abortion on demand, paid for by taxes. One of by one, one by one, we teach our children that life is dispensable, and then we blame the NRA for tragedies reaped by the seeds we have sown. Life is cheap. It’s that simple. It’s cheap in the movies, it’s cheap when a full grown men jump into bed with woman after woman, cheapening her intrinsic value, it’s cheap when we hide behind the cloak of ‘the struggle’ to understand when life starts etc… The answer is a theological one. Typically that is the last source sought out, if at all for such questions. God, Christ, the Scriptures, are not politically correct in our culture, but everything God detests, is in fact politically correct. The events we have witnessed today will not stop with new laws. They will continue to grow as our political darkness and moral relativism and outright anarchy toward the authority of God proceeds to gain its ever so popular stride.

[Roger German]

I think it is interesting that we are really talking about the same thing, just from different perspectives. I don't know which perspective is better, but we both agree that human life needs to be lifted in value, and that society as it is, values human life little. I approach it from the perspective of society endorsing the murder of its own citizens in capital punishment, often irreversibly in error, from the perspective of society endorsing the tens of thousands killed by guns in the US
as an acceptable level of death for the right for Remington, Browning, Beretta, Colt, Glock, HK and dozens of others to profit enormously on that death, hiding behind a twisted interpretation of the second amendment, I approach it from the point of view of the acceptable policies of invading countries replete with oil...those deaths, fully formed human lives tossed onto the scrap heap are not about political correctness, but are about politics, profit and power.
You approach it, as you point out, from the theological position, defining life at conception rather than at some other point along the development of the fetus. I respect that position, and appreciate the fact that we both are passionate about the value of life versus the expediency of money, power and politics.

[rmm]

Agreed. I still cant find the blog where you lament the atrocities done to the unborn in this country. Perhaps you can point me to it old buddy. And uh, get that B flat minor chord down. I really want to pick some with you if I can make it out to T's during your stay here.