A new standard for infamy
Mar. 17th, 2003 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
substituteI am a Christian, and an American. What are we, today?
We have "taken the gloves off". We permit torture, and break laws: ours, and others. We act alone, disdaining the community of nations. We kill those who offend or defy us, for pride. We say "we're tough and strong; we'll do as we please". It's time, we say, to turn from our soft, weak, forgiving past and be a real Empire. Let's have penal colonies, and midnight beatings, and murder our enemies in unapologetic style, like Rome or Great Britain in their heyday.
We are cowards. We shrink from any battle where we'll be hurt. We soar high above our enemies, dropping explosives on them, or firing missiles from a thousand miles away. We talk about an "air war" without splatters of mud or human lasagna offending us. We hire mercenaries to kill for us. Any amount of death is acceptable, if it's not our boys.
We are religious. We say: God is on our side. We command Him by bumpersticker and billboard to bless us. We say: Our God is the ruler of the Universe, and he decrees our wealth and power. We condemn our enemies as unbelievers, heretics, fanatics, fools, and devils. God, we say, has given us our bombs and our planes and our ships and our money, and we use it to carry out His will, as holy emperors of the Earth.
And when the sky cracks open and He comes to judge, what will He say of us? What could He say to such a gang of cowardly bullies, who torture and burn and lay waste to Eden all in His name?
WHAT WILL HE SAY?
We have "taken the gloves off". We permit torture, and break laws: ours, and others. We act alone, disdaining the community of nations. We kill those who offend or defy us, for pride. We say "we're tough and strong; we'll do as we please". It's time, we say, to turn from our soft, weak, forgiving past and be a real Empire. Let's have penal colonies, and midnight beatings, and murder our enemies in unapologetic style, like Rome or Great Britain in their heyday.
We are cowards. We shrink from any battle where we'll be hurt. We soar high above our enemies, dropping explosives on them, or firing missiles from a thousand miles away. We talk about an "air war" without splatters of mud or human lasagna offending us. We hire mercenaries to kill for us. Any amount of death is acceptable, if it's not our boys.
We are religious. We say: God is on our side. We command Him by bumpersticker and billboard to bless us. We say: Our God is the ruler of the Universe, and he decrees our wealth and power. We condemn our enemies as unbelievers, heretics, fanatics, fools, and devils. God, we say, has given us our bombs and our planes and our ships and our money, and we use it to carry out His will, as holy emperors of the Earth.
And when the sky cracks open and He comes to judge, what will He say of us? What could He say to such a gang of cowardly bullies, who torture and burn and lay waste to Eden all in His name?
WHAT WILL HE SAY?
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Date: 2003-03-18 06:37 am (UTC)