Red White and Blue Dawn

If you're not familiar with Red Dawn, feel free to rent it and give it a go. It stars Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen back in 1984, and it was the quintessential cold war paranoia flick depicting the invasion of Small Town, USA by a coalition of Cuban, Chinese and Russia soldiers (you know, the reds - the communists).


The story follows this small group of high school students who manage to escape the attack on their school (where the commies have nothing better to do than murder kids, obviously) and take to the hills. After a while they decide they're going to fight back and take on the invading force. They even name themselves the Wolverines (their school's mascot).

I remember how many conservative groups have recommended this movie as some sort of beacon of hope. I mean, what better exemplifies the American spirit than digging in and fighting for our country? I even heard someone just as the election seasons tarted up a couple years ago to watch it.

It's somewhat ironic then when these same groups don't understand what's happening in Afghanistan, Iraq (and previously/concurrently in Central/South America, et al). Perhaps we should watch the movie again, only this time the characters can be named Firas and Hassan, and the invading for can be the Coalition of the Willing. People who otherwise would have gone along their daily lives now pick up arms against the invaders. It's not about ideology at this point, the only thing that's known is there in a foreign armed force in their country and their friends have been killed.

I'm not justifying any of it. What I'm pointing to is this silly depravity of the human mind that would lead us into these ridiculous wars. It's back and forth. It's nonsense. It's satanic.

Safety first

I just finished reading about how girls in Afghanistan are being poisoned for going to school. Immediately I thought of the recent Swine Flu scare here in the States. We were shutting down schools for safety concerns, and everyone said it was because we need to be concerned about safety first.

This is the same reason the last Presidential administration (and now the current one) gave for expanding the Executive privilege beyond Constitutional allowances. We have to keep everyone safe.

So what do we tell these families in Afghanistan? Should we tell them they should take their girls out of school for their own safety?

This has another corollary in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. It wasn't safe for some blacks to go to school. Should they have stayed home for their own safety?

Or what about the women of the Suffrage Movement? Maybe they should have stayed home for their safety?

Sometimes doing the right thing isn't safe. And this is why it's so wrong for our government to neglect human dignity to "keep us safe." To give up our rights to privacy; the writ of habeas corpus, etc.

We need to do the right thing, regardless of safety.

All of this is just the socio-political aspect of this concept. This also applies to the Church.

We need to do what is right, and not give in to keep ourselves safe. We shouldn't repay evil for evil, we shouldn't kill or lie to preserve our safety. Even if it means danger, we should always seek to live like Christ, who left for us an example, "that you should follow in his steps. 'He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.' When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly." (1 Peter 2:21, 22)

Tale of two religions

A quote for today's ponderance from Frederick Douglas:

Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked…I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.

Our flag rage

As a follow up to my previous post, The cunning use of flags, I created this image:

The secret of a Christian

"The secret of a Christian is not that he is always in the right and puts other people in the right, but that he is a forgiven man. That is the secret of a Christian's humility, and his liberation to love God and his fellows with a new impulse. So the strength of the Church is not the strength of its members, but the strength of Christ who forgives them, humbles them, and can do something with them. So no one is excluded who is ready to say, 'I am sorry. God help me, a sinner.' In the final crisis all that St. Peter could say was 'I am sorry,' and Christ made him the rock man of the Church." ~A. Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury