Coping and a Call Not To Slack
9/12/1
On my way home from work, there were a lot of troop transport trucks in front of the National Guard Armory. I assumed they were in line to load up people. At that time, 3 pm central, I was pretty sure the attack was over. After all, what could they do when we essentially shut the nation down?
There are so many different reactions on the websites that I read. One gal in Texas is quoting Paul�s epistles where it says not to repay evil with evil. Another is cursing George Bush, as if he caused it.
It is not evil to punish those who work evil against the good. Read the bible. Paul was talking about individual Christian duties and responsibilities. He wasn�t talking about how a country should act. It isn�t even as if America is a Christian country anymore. America is more like a person who knows someone who does go to church.
Retaliatory strikes...I wish I could quote Theodore Roosevelt from The Strenuous Life. He talks about how easy it is to sit back and say that someone should protect the weak and someone should make sure that the evil people of the world don�t come to power. He says that when we fight a war with another country, that we shouldn�t forget that some of the greatest blows against our men in uniform was dealt before the conflict when members of congress voted to reduce their supplies.
Ah, here it is: http://www.bartleby.com/58/1.html
�A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole. Who among you would teach your boys that ease, that peace, is to be the first consideration in their eyes�to be the ultimate goal after which they strive?�
�When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who are themselves strong and brave and high-minded.�
�I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world. Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.�
Theodore Roosevelt
Excerpts from �The Strenuous Life�
SPEECH BEFORE THE HAMILTON CLUB,
CHICAGO, APRIL 10, 1899
We only had two people show up at the get together last night and we watched Bush make his tiny speech. I didn�t want to watch, not because I don�t like him, but because I had enough of the tragedy. However, after watching, I realized that the reason why people would want to is because it put some closure on the day.
Today on the way into work, the line to get into the Arsenal was about two miles long due to stepped up security, and this was just at 6:20 am. The trucks around the armory on the parkway were actually in the form of a barricade from the street.
I expected air strikes at whenever it was 4 a.m. in Afghanistan.