For what are you willing to die?
I know that I’m crazy as hell, and there are a lot of people eager to tell me so, but I am willing to die for you. For this conversation that we’ve been having since time immemorial, you and I and they.
Will you die for me? Check your pulse and decide.
I am sorry to have become a fanatic. It is not something that I’ve ever wanted to be. I long to be reasonable, to be peaceful.
That’s something that’s not permitted to me.
For what are you willing to die?
Are you willing to die for the proposition that people should be free to follow the dictates of their conscience? Are you willing to die for the proposition of democracy? Are you willing to die for the idea that the intellect should be free? Are you willing to die for the right of your neighbor to speak his opposition to what you believe?
This is not a new time for these questions, brothers and sisters. All times have been beset by these questions. But now is a crisis, not of parties or of politics per se, but of faith and of desire. Ask yourself, for what are you willing to die? Because it is now that you have to decide, or to have the decision foisted on you.
Well said, Dan.
Well, thanks for responding before I went to sleep, lunarpuff. I thought maybe I’d killed the site for good, there, for a bit.
I feel better, now.
But I still want to know what everyone would be willing to die for . . .
Well, I had a considered and thoughtful answer for you. Then Vista RC 1 ate it.
Excellent question. Truly the nut of the matter. But good luck on having anyone, other than a few, give a honest answer.
Though brandy enhanced, my answer is that, yes, I would die for you Dan Collins. As you are a citizen of this great country.
The only distinction I would make, is to separate those of us who would die for the living, versus those bastards, who would die for 72 nasty smelling whores in their ‘heaven’.
My first TW was disgusting. men69. Sorry, that’s just me.
Then, God bless you, Luther McLeod, we shall die together. There is some comfort in that. And before we do, we’ll take as many of the idiots with us as possible, and let God sort it out. You give me hope.
I have thought about this a great deal. And concluded that yes, I would be willing to die for all of it. It’s worth dying for.
I don’t want to die, mind you. But willing? Yes.
And of course, I’ll try and take some idiots with me!
And I don’t want you to die: but by considering these things realistically, my dear lunarpuff, we may forge a victory pact rather than a suicide one.
I’d be willing to die for you. In fact, I’d even be willing to die for actus, someone who doesn’t agree with me. Despite not being religious, I believe in transcendance. Like Nathan Hale, I believe some things are just right. In short, I admire men like Fabrizio Quattrocchi.
And again, well said Dan. And that’s why I’m willing.
ahem–
Fabrizio Quattrocchi ought to have an international stamp devoted to his memory.
In fact, we ought to have a Quattrocchi t-shirt available at Jeff’s site.
I would definitely buy that t-shirt.
That’s the sort of spirit that needs to be spread.
We can’t very well send a squad of cheerleaders to Iraq, so this is the next best thing.
What am I willing to die for?
In the micro… nothing would stop me from protecting my children and grandchildren. Even armed with nothing more than my wits and fingernails, I would tear limb from limb any one wishing harm upon my family.
I would die for my husband because he is part of me and I couldn’t bear not doing my best for him.
I would die for my parents, my sister, my friends who I love.
But most importantly, I would live to fight against the enemies of my country, and die if need be within that fight. Not because I was born here, but because I have elected, by individual choice, to confirm my beliefs in the values and morality of this Grand Experiment.
A knottier question is, for what would you be willing to watch your family die?
In his samizdat proto-blog The Oak and the Calf, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn confided that, in order to see The Gulag Archipelago through to publication, they were willing to defy the Soviet authorities even if they arrested and threatened their children.
Another question is, are you sure you could go through with your proclaimed sacrifice, if it really came to that? If there were no time to prepare yourself? Remember that Italian who ripped off his mask and roared defiance at the video camera, before the jihadis killed him. Would we be like him, or like those Fox News reporters, who came away with new Muslims names?
I would definatley rather die than take on a new muslim name.
I would like to think I would die for God, family, honour, and country.
Guess I won’t really know until confronted with that choice.
I pray I have the courage to make the right choice.
There is not a doubt in my mind I could go thru with my proclaimed sacrifice, Sanity.
However, I wonder what I would do if they involved my family. Arresting them would be one thing. Killing them? Torture?
Honestly? I truly have no idea on that one. And I can’t even make my brain go there.
– Once in awhile, on quiet Sundays, when hectic busy times stand still for a bit, I visit Point Loma National cemetary, and stand silent tribute to the thousands and thousands of gravestones that dot the green rolling hills, as far as the eye can see. Men and Women who payed the ultimate price for love of family and country. People just like you and I, with loves, and hopes, dreams, and sadness, all the same things we all cherish, and many of the same things we all fear. But they went and did what they knew they must, not for money, or praise, or medals, but from principle, a deep belief in our way of life, and their loved ones safety.
– I know the answer to your question Dan, and I knew it even back when I served. Yes I would die for home, hearth, and family, and yes I would die for you Dan, my brother, and to honor the memories and bravery of all who have gone before.
– If we ever lose that American ideal, dying to defend our rights, not to aggress on others, we will surely fail. But I believe as long as we remain faithful to that commitment, He will see us through.
There are things that are so important to life that life without them is not worth living. Freedom is an abstraction, but its concrete manifestations are all around us: the vast array of media outlets that bring us news of the world, and allow the free exchange of ideas; the markets that supply us with goods from all over the world; the myriad entertainments availabe to us; the ability to change jobs, buy and sell property, and move about in this country without asking leave of anyone; the ability to speak our minds without fear. The people of the West have more freedom than any people in the history of the world, and they have used that freedom to better their lives in thousands of ways.
Would I fight for that? Absolutely. Would I die for it? If fighting resulted in my death, yes. I agree with Patton, though, who said that the goal of war isn’t to die for your country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his. So I would not go off to die for my country, I would go off to kill for my country and I would do my damnedest not to die. Western civilization won’t be saved by how many die for it, but how many are willing to live and fight for it.
Maybe that’s ducking your question though. If you want to know what I would exchange my life for in an even swap, then the answer is my wife and children.
I don’t believe you can manufacture a scenario in which the fate of Western civilization hinges on the sacrifice of one person. I don’t think it’s that fragile. It happens all the time, though, that people reflexively put their bodies between their loved ones and danger. We do it because life without them would be desolate, and we would rather die than face it. My wife, daughter, and son, are the three people in this world that I know without a doubt that, seeing a gun pointed at them, my reaction would be, “Not them, me.”
Life without freedom would be desolate also, but so long as people have hope for the future they will often carry on with life in the face of that desolation. “Live free, or die” is an uncompromising position. It is the determination to accept no dilution of the life proper to Man. I don’t know if I have the courage to be the one lone fighter doomed to die in a hopeless struggle for freedom. I don’t know what odds I would need. The struggle our Founders faced must have seemed hopeless at times, but they perservered. I would like to believe that I would have stood with them, but I haven’t faced that test.
It’s not the test we face now. Our Founders were up against the most advanced nation on the planet at that time. They faced the world’s best navy and well-trained, professional soldiers. They won by the skin of their teeth, and many of them died in the struggle. We’re up against a bunch of backwards religious fanatics whose best tactic is blowing themselves up, and whose only strategy is to hope we will eventually get tired of killing them.
Winning the present war doesn’t require that we die for our country, it only requires that we be willing to kill. We could destroy every one of the countries opposed to us in less than 24 hrs without the loss of one of our soldiers. That’s what angers me so much about the casualties in this war. Our soldiers are dying so that we don’t have to kill so many of the enemy. They are being sacrificed for the lives of enemy civilians, so that the people here at home don’t have to feel like murderers. And that pisses me off. No one should have to die for that.
Ardsgaine, a very honest and moving post.
I had some issues with the last paragraph, but I will think them thru before I respond. Or maybe not respond. Sometimes, I just listen, and I think there is a place for that.
You obviously thought your post thru and you stated your position well.
So, thanks. I wish you well.
– One of the aims of the animals that masquerade as people, and are attacking us, is to “prove” we are no different than they. They hope to feed off of that in a culture where “face” means more than life. I won’t give them that if I can help it. I won’t cut off heads of woman and children, and drag limbless, totured bodies, through the streets to give them legitmacy, even for revenge. Dead is dead. If your cause is right, that should be enough.
– But you are right Ardsgaine. No one should ever have to die for “perceptions”. That makes their deaths pointless, and that deeply angers me as well. But what our enemies do not understand about us is their acts of heathen, mindless brutality, sets our wills and determination in a way that fancy words never could.
Thanks, lunarpuff.
BBH, I know that you know the difference between Nanking and Hiroshima, so I won’t belabor that point. The enemy we face now wants us to get down in the trenches with him, and fight hand to hand. He likes the smell of blood and death. He wants us to fight on his terms. So long as he is able to die fighting while taking a few of us with him, he will continue to fight forever. It’s his way of life, and has been for millenia. He cannot face the hopelessness, though, of fighting an enemy that slaughters him by the hundred thousands from the sky beyond his reach. Just knowing that we can do it, but won’t, is a moral victory in his buggered mind. When we find the moral courage to do it, he will know that Allah has abandoned him, and the fight will go out of him.
Well, this is a point that consistently gets me. We could win this differently, but with a much greater number of civilian casualties.
The moral questions of such action will never go away. It’s the age old, ‘if you had to kill one innocent person to save hundreds..’
But should we fight a war this way?
I, personally don’t think so.
And by that I mean we should be fighting to win, not trying to score brownie points for the people who don’t like us there to begin with.
To die for?
How about a picture or Al Gore taking a large check from Babs Streisand fror some shitty head?
Or I would die for a little “whatever” from the blonde I met tonight. Whoooo! It’s too bad abouut that tooth that fell out of my mouth. I hate looking like a trailer park manager, but that’s exactly what I look like.
“Where’s your frickin’ rent?”
Sort of like this: III-III. Nice teeth. huh?
Who knows? Maybe next week…
Actually Loat dog…. a lot of women think a lisp is sexy…..gives her a place to keep her eyebrow pencil……
Lost Dog, it would help a great deal if you could tell us exactlu which Jerry Springer episode you are referring to.
Thanks!
Care to share your secret winning strategy with us, lunar?
Monky, I don’t believe I stated I had a winning strategy. To the contary, I stated a moral conundrum. For me at least.
I hate the loss of innocent civilians always. But there has never been a war without this. War is always messy and it will never fit neatly into an Excel spreadsheet. Ever.
But war has accomplished some long term good in several places.
And sitting down with a non-fat latte has so far accomplished nothing.
I’m fine with ideals, but at some point don’t you need you need a success?
How about you answering the question monkyboy.
What would you give your life for?
He won’t answer that question Lee.
He takes his life for granted. His life will always be just so. No thinking or action required.
Some invisible body will always do the necessary work to keep it so.
Well, I thought at least he would come up with an interesting lie…
He just may come up with a ‘fallacy’ shall we say.
But it won’t be interesting.
Ardsgaine, that so violates my sense of justice and common sense that, depending on the circumstance, I might give my life to prevent it.
First, my religion forbids murder. Nuking Iran at this time would be so far beyond rational self defense that it would constitute murder. I’m pretty sure you can’t kill Satan no matter what weapon you use. You can’t defeat Satan by emulating him. That’s really the way I look at it.
Second, we have only one historical example of ending a war with nuclear weapons. To extrapolate from WW2 that the islamic fascists will would be broken is far from certain. Do you think it will break America’s will when the islamic fascists nuke us? I don’t. I think it will anger millions of American’s who up till now haven’t felt particularly threatened. My will won’t be broken, I’m expecting the islamic fascists to nuke one or more of our cities eventually. Then we should nuke someone (anyone) just to send the message that if you hit us we will hit back. I think it would be more efficacious to nuke an islamic banlieue in France than to nuke Tehran, though.
Finally, there’s that theme that runs through a lot of this nuke’em talk: that we have to make sure as few American soldiers die as possible.
Seriously, is this any way to fight a war? (Now is when you can just call me a chickenhawk and not bother to even think about this quesion.)
Dan, for what cause are you willing to send others to die?
Lee, monkyboy won’t answer the question because monkyboy can’t answer it. Remember the thread about the new Army commercial? Monkyboy couldn’t understand the concept of there being something bigger and grander than itself. It demonstrates the one trait that seems tounite the left today – narcissism.
Perhaps one of these days it will find the strength to get over itself. But I don’t have much hope for that.
Oh, and with regard to Dan’s question? I think Dan answered pretty well for me.
krlfz1,
The will of Americans would not be broken because we would still have the means to strike back. If we were unable to strike back and all we could do is huddle in our cities and die, what then?
I notice that you don’t say if the Islamic fascists hit us, you say when. And yet, you say we should only hit them afterwards. I consider it morally unacceptable to sit around waiting for the deaths of a million Americans, knowing that it’s going to happen, and being unwilling to prevent it. It is not murder to kill people in a war of self-defense. The responsibility for the deaths of innocents belongs to the aggressors. Iran began this war with us in 1979. They have murdered our soldiers and our journalists through their proxies in Hizbollah. They have announced their hostility to us in unequivocal terms. No one can doubt that they mean to hurt us in any way they can. We have no business twiddling our thumbs waiting for the hammer to fall. The innocent people in Iran today won’t be any less innocent after the mullahs have nuked us. The difference between you and I is that you want Americans to die first. That is neither common sense nor justice.
I answered the question when I swore my oath. The Consitution of the United States, and by extension, all of you that are Americans. By lawful order, anyone else that is necessary.
And don’t think I am getting all high and mighty either. When a nervous Afghan militiaman stuck an AK in my chest during a “misunderstanding” my first thought was ‘what a stupid way to die…’
I agree, Ardsgaine. Exactly. We should fight this war with every means at our disposal, not just with nukes. Listen to this argument though. If the islamic fascists nuking America is inevitable, then us nuking them first won’t stop it and won’t save a million American lives. Instead, nuking them second may save far more American lives in the long run. You can’t claim to know how many lives will be saved in the long run, can you? I don’t know either, I just would like to sow some doubt in your certainty.
What if after you nuke a few places around the globe the islamic fascists (or someone) nukes an American city or three. Who do you nuke then? The prime suspects have all already been nuked. Nuke France? Sure, that might make me happy but …? (I keed. France is a really, really good ally of the U.S. I would never nuke them. (wink, wink))
Besides, I believe in God and the Devil and human souls that transcend death. How we live matters, not just how long we live. But maybe that’s just me.
tw: except18
Except when I was 18 I felt like I would live forever. Oh, you too?
klrfz1: One parable Jesus uses is this:
God is the keeper of the house, he goes on a long journey, leaving his servants to care for the house. He’s coming back, but we don’t know when.
…But when he returns, he’s going to expect the house to be in order, yes?
Lets not leave this place a shambles. We’ve got to do what we can. Remember that all real authority comes from God, and if the Constitution has real authority over us, then it is from God. Fulfilling our oath then is doing as God commands. (Obviously, if the people giving orders are doing evil, their authority is lost.) Authority is an abstract thing.
I would be willing to die for the constitution, simply because I believe it has real authority over me. Thus, by my word I must if necessary. The state serves me, and I serve the constitution, and by extension, the one who gives it authority, God. (I also serve God.)
Anyone who perverts the authority given by God forfeits their authority; However, I do not believe that I am, in all cases, a sufficient judge of this. In this way, my conscience is clear about things I do on behalf of my countrymen, provided that they do indeed come to good. If they do not, I can seek atonement.
I would certainly be willing to give my life for the betterment of others’– this is a Christian principle. Paul says: “I die daily.” Mostly, it was dying to the flesh, but eventually, it was literal death (he was executed.)
If you can find nothing worth giving your life for, what do you live for?
If you can find nothing GOOD worth giving your life for, you are blind.
Did you hear, the Amish, whose children were murdered, set aside some of the donation money for the killer’s children. They had nothing to do with his decision. They are being what is called ‘Kinsmen Redeemers’.
I’ll tell you, as much as I disagree with the Amish on many things, their faith is proven to me by that act.
“He who saves his life shall lose it, he who gives up his life for my sake shall save it.”
As for fighting the physical enemies, “Fear not he who can kill the body, but he who can send both the body and the soul to the pit of hell.”
I prefer to fight to make peace, but there are times when peace no longer is an option. In that case, as many of the enemy who need to be slain for the enemy to surrender, will be slain. Unless, we don’t think we’re good enough to fight for. If that’s so, then we’re all blind.