Posted on 07/03/2012 8:40:34 PM PDT by verum ago
To all the people moping and crying and declaring that all is lost: please read this Medal of Honor citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Saipan, Mariana Islands, 19 June to 7 July 1944. When his entire company was held up by fire from automatic weapons and small-arms fire from strongly fortified enemy positions that commanded the view of the company, Sgt. (then Pvt.) Baker voluntarily took a bazooka and dashed alone to within 100 yards of the enemy. Through heavy rifle and machinegun fire that was directed at him by the enemy, he knocked out the strong point, enabling his company to assault the ridge. Some days later while his company advanced across the open field flanked with obstructions and places of concealment for the enemy, Sgt. Baker again voluntarily took up a position in the rear to protect the company against surprise attack and came upon 2 heavily fortified enemy pockets manned by 2 officers and 10 enlisted men which had been bypassed. Without regard for such superior numbers, he unhesitatingly attacked and killed all of them. Five hundred yards farther, he discovered 6 men of the enemy who had concealed themselves behind our lines and destroyed all of them. On 7 July 1944, the perimeter of which Sgt. Baker was a part was attacked from 3 sides by from 3,000 to 5,000 Japanese. During the early stages of this attack, Sgt. Baker was seriously wounded but he insisted on remaining in the line and fired at the enemy at ranges sometimes as close as 5 yards until his ammunition ran out. Without ammunition and with his own weapon battered to uselessness from hand-to-hand combat, he was carried about 50 yards to the rear by a comrade, who was then himself wounded. At this point Sgt. Baker refused to be moved any farther stating that he preferred to be left to die rather than risk the lives of any more of his friends. A short time later, at his request, he was placed in a sitting position against a small tree. Another comrade, withdrawing, offered assistance. Sgt. Baker refused, insisting that he be left alone and be given a soldier's pistol with its remaining 8 rounds of ammunition. When last seen alive, Sgt. Baker was propped against a tree, pistol in hand, calmly facing the foe. Later Sgt. Baker's body was found in the same position, gun empty, with 8 Japanese lying dead before him. His deeds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.
This was much needed...incredible bravery...let’s ride!
I don’t see a Biblical perspective in your post. Isaiah 3:1-4 points out that a nation disobedient to God would be cursed with immature and wicked leaders; hence the choices for president we have now. Rallying around Romney won’t be enough. (Frankly, I’d rather have Romney Wordsworth.)
I'll lift a Sam Adams Summer Ale when I get home from work tomorrow night.
My b-i-l called last week, the morning of the Supremes' decision, and he was SO depressed. He was a little better, later in the day, but was lamenting the idiocy of the people who put Obama in the White House.
I'm more optimistic about this election than many. I just believe that a fair number of folks who voted for Obama last time will be disgusted enough by the sorry economy to have the scales removed from their eyes, and want a real change in November.
Let’s roll, dammit.
***Unless you point out a proper course, downhill is the only way things will roll. What is the proper course? If it’s so obvious, why didn’t you say what is the proper course rather than wait around for another FReeper to drag it out of you?
Thank you for reminding us that some give all. We must pull up our britches and get to work....NOW
My dads older brother was killed on Siapan they got the telegram on July 4 1944. This time of year I often remember how they never thought his death was not for the good of the country they loved.
My gramps, I’m sure could not understand the Americans of today who put party over principle, and their honor behind their love and willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for their Country.
My grampa even after losing his oldest son would call us all traitors for surrendering the country to the politicians who are only interested in getting reelected> He’d call us selfish lazy asses for even considering putting party over principle.
Audie Murphy, Alvin York, Joe Foss, and Pappy Boyington.
They all lived long and fruitful lives.
But they also lived in America, not the Obamanation.
The Medal of Honor can be awarded to dead and living heroes.
Bookmark for later
Your words touched very close to events in my life. My brother was killed on Okinawa in April of 1945. In that case it was the US army trying to take a very heavily armed and manned hill with many caves. A buddy of my brother who survived told me my brother was also a rear guard. I visited Okinawa several years ago and retraced the paths of many soldiers and Marines who fought and died on that Island.But what was more catching for me in you story was the fact that barely missing the the invasion of Japan (it wasn’t necessary) I was transferred to Saipan. I saw and walked over the terrain of that Island. I can vouch for what has been said and shown about the horrific battles. I saw and remember vividly gun caves where there were still burned Jap bodies. Sometimes I get down a bit that our Nation is consumed with rock concerts, gambling casinos, Hollywood make believe. and high priced sporting events and players so much so that the 4th of July is one big party time without the essential history.
Damn Straight!
There’s a KuhRayZee man at the door of the cockpit....”Let’s finish him before he finishes us”.....”Roll”...
If we must use the sacrifice of our heroes to justify an action, then let it be for restoring the America they fought and died for, not to elect some lukewarm politician that changes his principles as often as Madonna changes her underwear.
While we must use our brains in this fight, we must also ensure that we are worthy of Devinne intervention, if we are to succeed against the evil growing in our land.
Yup. My fertile mind is already thinking.
I have a feeling mine would’ve too; both of them! And the grandma’s..a couple of tough and tender ladies! Both of them ‘Momma Grizzlies’! The funny thing is-one of them was a Democrat-one of the much more conservative type; the other was a proud Republican, a conservative one! One was an immigrant (the Republ.), one was from German/Prussian immigrant parents. Both were solid, patriotic citizens who loved America!
In that next to last part, I meant to put “the other one was from German/Prussian immigrant parents”. I forgot to proofread!
I’m with you, to our original Republic borders and original Constitution.
We Texians have to rid ourselves of this Feral Government, or we will go down with it.
1944 was a long time ago. The disease has taken over. Just look around any city. It’s all decay and rot. I weep over my children’s future.
Let us out of this bastard union. The blue states could go completely commie like they want. The the red states start over.
Anyone who is moping is not making a moral error, but an error of context.
That's good news because there are no grounds for moping extant, not one. You need not mope, and nor do you need to think that in order not to mope you must grab some great sword and slay the evil enemies. This is not a half time football game chat when the team is down 28 points.
Mark Steyn has wisely pointed out, and perhaps he borrowed it, that this history of mankind, especially in relation to the capital ‘S’ State, is in a consistently repeating cycle of Farce followed by Farce followed by Tragedy. There is nothing inherently different about our country, except that our constitution, not a perfect document nor guarantee of anything, is the finest set of brakes on a perpetually accelerating car ever devised.
But it's still only a set of brakes. To a Christian, mankind is fallen at birth. To a Buddhist, he is a slave to illusion. The twain can be reconciled if we allow that both point to the notion that if you eliminate everything mankind-like from the equation (thought forms,) you are left whith 'what actually already is,' which is already perfect.
But mankind has never seen clearly, so he can not see perfection. In Christianity, he can not look past himself, so he doesn't see the face of God. In Buddhism, he clings to and is hypnotized by illusion out of fear that an illusory self is always in danger. It is the same mistake. It is the root of what we perceive as evil
The framers' document was first and foremost a religious document. If there is no source of freedom, then there can be no claim that it is man's birthright. More to the point, a man actually is free when he is born, and he is in fact never not free after that.
The Constitution was a bridle on a horse they realized could never stand still. To hope otherwise would be to deny that mankind is inherently fallen, sinful, blind, filled with illusion, and to deny that this drop of arsenic would eventually spoil the water. That's the cycle. The experiment was not ‘can we create a government and citizenry that shall not bumble its way towards and off the cliff’ (Farce, Farce, Tragedy) ... the experiment was ‘how slow can we make the next cycle.’ (A Republic - if you can keep it!) (The Republic will stand until a majority can vote itself the minority's treasure and freedom - or however it was stated)
They KNEW America was doomed to the cycle. (so why mope at the sight of the cycle.) But the reason for that is not Obama, or Roberts. It's because there is no such thing as a non-doomed society. Ayn Rand said in Anthem that the ‘Most evil word in the English language is “WE”’.
The mere illusion of ‘WE’, a mind made illusory entity which God does not recognize nor address, already carries in it the seeds of the group's destruction. To form a government, then, is itself to doom that government.
But mankind is not yet evolved enough for a free Anarchy. Capital ‘L’ Libertarianism would fail on practical grounds given the current evolutionary stage of Man. We must have government now, but what fool thinks that ‘the least worst option’ is something to one can expect to provide one with the joy of that which he seeks?
Those who fought and died for this country did not in fact serve America, which is just a name. They served Freedom, the ultimate evolutionary direction of mankind, derived from whatever version of God you like, but derived from a design extant prior to our bumbling out of the dark water. They fought for mankind, and even more, for life (life the design, not life the spotted darting snail as an instance of the design.)
Mankind's struggle and progress will always be towards freedom, that is ultimately the direction he will go, and always on earth be short of it. It is in fact a broader context than Farce Farce Tragedy - it is the space in which Farce Farce Tragedy is provided space to arise.
‘America’ just happens to be the name given to the place where Freedom happens to have reared its beautiful head most visibly.
To mope is to worship Caesar in anger. To mope that someone gave his life for something that ‘we are throwing away’ is narcissistic and does dishonor to what they died for.
The Founders did not ‘win freedom,’ they secured a sort of bridling injunction on sin, on illusion. Once you understand that mankind is not ready to be free, and that he will not be made ready to be free by a rational argument or on a schedule we create, but rather by an evolutionary force originating in a spiritual design rendered material a priory our arrival on the spinning dirt ball, then expations are realistic and the unfolding of freedom is as peaceful as the Lily "Look at the Lily, how it grows, it neither spins nor toils" Jesus said. The Buddha happened to pick a Lotus growing in mud.
If you mope, then you are mad at God for not yet delivering you a Heaven for which you feel you have expended enough energy and righteous character earning. The illusion is not that you are righteous, the illusion is that you will ever earn it. That is not a moral error, but an error of illusion. In itself it's original sin. Jesus pardoned your sins exactly because they aren't moral errors, but the error of mistaking an illusion for a reality. In Buddhism, it is attachment to illusion that is Hell. It is your own fallen self that mopes. You thought your mother was going to buy you candy, and she didn't, nor did she ever promise it. It's no different from screaming at God ‘NO FAIR!!!!!’.
Our job as men is not to achieve freedom, but to struggle for it. That being the case, Happy Warrior is the only worthwhile earthly role to play as mortals. How do you expect to spread freedom on Earth when you are a prisoner Spiritually to earthly Caesars? We are always the prisoner to that at which we are angry or negative (Aversion in Buddhism)
Jesus said ‘The kingdom of heaven is already about you.’ The Buddha had a different approach, realizing that when all illusion fell away ‘This stillness is bliss’.
Don't be frustrated that you can't lift a stone when you can't lift your own hand yet. It's OK, it was never in your control to pick the moment or determine the speed of mankind's crossing the evolutionary finish line.
Don't fret Catastrophic Climate Change just because it's been hot lately. God isn't worried, the Tao isn't worried. You came from them, and yet they don't mope.
All you have to do is be what you already are, which is a child of the same design that created freedom itself, that created evolution itself. You are not required to mope or be frustrated as an excuse for things not going your way. But if your spirit is controlled by wishing to change the script of a play that was written by your father, then you yourself have walked into Hell, under the illusion that you were merely filing a protest against your fellow man and earthly conditions and circumstances.
You are not required to be thankful, and nor are you required to mope. But just as you are required to eat and breathe, you are required to fight, and enjoy it, and die laughing ... otherwise it is you who do not yet understand, and are not yet ready for freedom. Until you understand it's invisible design, you can not replicate it on earth. To mope is to not understand Freedom's invisible design.
In the moment verum’s soldier demanded the pistol, he understood freedom, that in fact he had always been free, and had he not died moments later, it wouldn't have mattered - he was already free of life and death. Had he lived, likely he would have drifted back into the semi hypnosis under which most of us spend most of our time. Evolution begins with glimpses. Yet here on earth, in the moment of that glimpse, he was about the least free man on the planet.
Nothing wrong with moping, but my question is: How does it make you feel? Free? Free people are happy, not mopey. So you were already not free before you moped.
Alas, the sun has come up in Maine ... even Rasmussen believes Romney will win (another least worst) ... happy fourth everyone ...
Inevitable outcome. Human Central Planning ALWAYS FAILS!
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