the True Nature of Reality

Kids these days

It's things like this that give me a lot of hope for the future.

In the midst of downtown Baghdad, I realized something. I am 19 years old and rather then worrying about where the next party is this weekend or what movie I want to see tonight, I am worrying about how to keep myself alive. Everyday puts us in a life or death situation and just on this 3 day convoy I have learned so much about myself and the U.S. I have seen things that have shocked me to the core and I've only been here two weeks.

and...

I wish there was some way for every American to see what we've seen and are going to see, maybe then they'll go home and not complain about the broken TV because it means they have electricity, or the leaking plumbing because it means they have running potable water, or the high prices they had to pay for groceries because it means that they have the ability to purchase food for their family rather then scrounge through garbage and send their children out begging.
Already I have discovered so much about life and how damn lucky we are to be Americans.
I can only imagine what the next year will bring for me.
Love you , Tamra

Read it all

And Tamra, God bless you and keep you this year. Thanks and honor go to your parents.

Hat tip: Misha

"So let us get a grip"

Victor David Hanson hits another one out of the park. I wish I could get every Dem and Leftist to read this - but I fear it wouldn't do any good.

Read it all.

Hat tip LGF.

The escalation of the war

In the past few weeks we've seen what seems like a major ramp-up of the war.

No, I don't mean the war in Iraq, or at least not only that. I mean the overall war of our enemies against us.

We've got attacks in Spain, foiled serious attacks in Spain, Britain, and France, Threats of more to come against those and others.

Kidnapped Coalition members in Iraq. Al-Sadr's insurrection. Fallujah's insurrection. The Iranian-funded Hamas and Hezbollah bragging of their connection to al-Sadr and vice versa.

Attacks, foiled attacks, or explcit threats against Uzbekistan, Rome, the Phillipines.

And of course the war against Israel never lets up. The new development is that the Palestinians terrorists groups have now openly thrown in with the fight against America.

The list goes on and on.

No matter how you felt about things a year ago, or two, can anyone NOW doubt that we are engaged in a world war and not some law-enforcement exercise?

Alamo in Iraq - but they got out

A harrowing account of recent combat in Iraq, from a very feisty American soldier. Don't miss "The Alamo is over-rated as a tourist attraction, dammit".

Hat tip, nzpundit, who has cogent comments, including this gem, suitable for framing:

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that modern journalism is an enemy of western civilisaation.

Exactly. "We have met the enemy, and he is us." If Western Civilization dies, it'll be suicide.

Fly a flag for the troops

Kate at Electric Venom has a great suggestion: fly a flag on your blog for the troops in Iraq who can't. Hat tip to Rosemary.

Duty, and choices

The killing and mutilation of four American security guards has certainly brought an awful lot of things to the surface in the blogosphere. I find many of them shocking, and depressing, but revealing.

I want to use this post from Armed Liberal as a jumping off point.

The particular question I want to address here is the matter of valuing some lives more than others.

Nathan Newman challenged those who criticized Kos by posting a graphic image of a dead child and asking why that child's death didn't spur the same level of outrage as the deaths of the American civilian guards, and by extension, why the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the crossfire in Falluja last week didn't outrage us.

The answer to Nathan's question is, in no small part, that we're not that nice. We don't value all lives lost the same way; we value ours more than theirs, those murdered more than those killed in accidents, and so on.

And the reality is that it's impossible to value all lives equally.

It's not a question of being "nice", but the obverse. I hold that it is not only impossible, but immoral to value all lives equally. We are a moral people, so we do not do so.

Your (meaning the reader, not A.L. specifically) parents, if you had a healthy set, loved you and cared for you through childhood. Not because they "felt like it" or because it made them "feel good". They did it, in large part, from a sense of duty. They brought you into this world, and they owed you. (And indeed, the Left believes in this. Look at how they feel about child support.)

Your parents valued your life more than they valued that of other children, and they would be immoral if they did not.

The local policeman, or fireman. Do you think they put their lives on the line solely because of the money or excitement? They do not. They have a sense of duty towards you.

They value your life more than the life of a criminal, should it come to that, and they would be immoral if they did not.

Our brave military men and women. Do you think they volunteer just for the great pay? Not. They have a sense of duty towards you.

They value your life more than the lives of our enemies, and they would be immoral if they did not.

It follows surely from that, that you have a duty towards them.

You must regard their lives as worth more than those who have not taken this stance towards you. If you do not, you are a freeloader. Or, to put it more bluntly, a thief. You benefit from the moral behavior of others, to the point of some protecting your life by sacrificing theirs, but will not reciprocate. You have taken their sacrifice under false pretenses.

This freeloading is more than a matter of personal morality. There are powerful effects in the real world.

A.L. goes on to quote Schaar

In addition, advanced political opinion holds that positive, new ideas and forces--e.g., internationalism, universalism; humanism, economic interdependence, socialist solidarity--are healthier bonds of unity, and more to be encouraged than the ties of patriotism. These are genuine objections, and they are held by many thoughtful people.

And those thoughtful people, by virtue of their attachment to the wider world, cannot take sides; they can't view the tragedy of an American soldier's death as deeply different than the tragedy of an Iraqi soldier's death. They are one and the same; and so are paralyzed. They can't make a decision because all deaths weigh the same.

Exactly. And again their immorality is demonstrated. In this case, the immorality of cowardice. They pretend there can be a world where the choice can be avoided, if only we just wish hard enough. Because they fear to make that choice. They have never done anything but scold others when they make these choices, and the thought of dirtying their own hands is abhorrent.

But as A.L. points out, all life is choices, choices that mean life and death to real people:

Every decision we make kills someone. Every dollar we spend is a dollar that doesn't save a starving child, everything we buy leaves a trail of pollution, exploitation and death behind.

My father built high-rise buildings. He probably lost a worker on every third or fourth project; he was devastated when it happened. We would go to the funerals. But it isn't possible to build buildings like that without risk.

and...

How much will we spend on emergency medical care versus home heating subsidies? How much will we spend on food stamps for the elderly versus prescription drugs? How much energy will we spend on creating jobs and how much on preserving the environment? Each decision means deaths; from disease or injury, from cold, from malnutrition (the elderly poor still suffer from that); from uncontrolled illness, from unemployment and descent into poverty, from illness caused by environmental conditions.

Those who say "everyone is valued the same" are just afraid to have to make real choices in the real world. In so doing, they force all those choices off on others. Some of those others are not worthy of being allowed to influence those choices, for the rest, they are left saddled with more moral responsibility than is their share. Once again, we see the freerider.

But it's worse than that. For indeed, those who refuse to make moral distinctions will find events are forced by others who DO make moral distinctions - and they may not be the kind of morals we would like.

The responsibility of making moral distinctions belongs to all of us, whether we will it or no. Only the animals do not choose, and indeed that is how we differ from them.