Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Free Speech and Islam — The Left Betrays the Most Vulnerable
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
“…For starters, a few words about premises and some necessary background. Those who deploy the “stupid term” (see Christopher Hitchens) “Islamophobia” to silence critics of the faith hold, in essence, that Muslims deserve to be approached as a race apart, and not as equals, not as individual adults capable of rational choice, but as lifelong members of an immutable, sacrosanct community, whose (often highly illiberal) views must not be questioned, whose traditions (including the veiling of women) must not be challenged, whose scripturally inspired violence must be explained away as the inevitable outcome of Western interventionism in the Middle East or racism and “marginalization” in Western countries.
Fail to exhibit due respect for Islam — not Muslims as people, Islam — and you risk being excoriated, by certain progressives, as an “Islamophobe,” as a fomenter of hatred for an underprivileged minority, as an abettor of Donald Trump and his bigoted policy proposals, and, most illogically, as a racist.”
Islam, however, is not a race, but a religion — that is, a man-made
ideological construct of assertions (deriving authority not from
evidence, but from “revelation,” just as Christianity and Judaism do)
about the origins and future of the cosmos and mankind, accompanied by
instructions to mankind about how to behave.
Those who believe in Islam
today may — and some do — reject it tomorrow. (Atheism has, in fact, been spreading in the Muslim world.) Calling the noun Islamophobia “sinister,” Ali A. Rizvi, a Canadian
Pakistani-born physician and prominent figure among former Muslims in
North America, told me via Skype recently that the word “actually takes
the pain of genuine victims of anti-Muslim bigotry and uses that pain,
it exploits it for the political purpose of stifling criticism of
Islam.”
In fact, denying Islam’s role in, for instance, misogynist
violence in the Muslim world, said Rizvi, is itself racist and
“incredibly bigoted, because you’re saying that it’s not these ideas and
beliefs and this indoctrination [in Islam] that cause” the
“disproportionately high numbers of violent, misogynistic people in
Muslim majority countries, it’s just in their DNA.”
Also, remember that Islam claims jurisdiction not just over its followers, but over us all, with a message directed to humanity as a whole. Which means Islam should be susceptible to critique by all. People, whatever their faith (or lack thereof) deserve respect; their ideologies? Not necessarily. In fact, the cornerstone of any free society is freedom of expression – a freedom impeded by labeling as “phobic” those who would object to an ideology.Read it all here...................
