Posted on 07/21/2006 3:50:40 AM PDT by Puzzleman
One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
He is a role model, and not just for black people, but for all Americans.
A good article, but I'm afraid many even good-intentioned Christians (not the John Spong phonies, but bona fide well meaning ones, the ones who read Christianity Today and so) will turn a blind eye to what Sowell said.
I'm puzzled as to why you'd bring in Christianity; Dr. Sowell certainly didn't mention that as an issue.
As a Christian myself, I see no conflict between praying diligently for peace (in the Middle East and elsewhere), while supporting the right of nations to defend themselves forcefully against agression.
ping
As always TS hits the nail on the head.
After the front page news article about the "Peace House" here in town and the "protests" they are planning I wonder if the Fayetteville Obscurer will print that issue of TS.
They do print some of his.
Sowell, brother.
I have heard people say the US Constitution is not a suicide pact. As a Christian, I do not believe God intends for the Bible to be a suicide pact either. Turning the other cheek has nothing at all to do with self defense. I am pretty much against these so called peace mongers. It does not work.
Peace doesn't come about from do-nothings.
Unfortunately, many think that unilateral peace leads to universal peace - reality is too often contrary.
No argument there!
Dr. Sowell points out that people just don't think these things through, and I believe he's right. I don't know whether, somewhere in his writing, he addresses the question of how people can function when they're mentally on Planet Zongo ... but I often wonder ...
I haven't even read the article yet, but I am sure it will be good.
The man is brilliant. I just finished reading "Black Liberals and White Liberals", and his book "Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy" is hard to beat for anyone who is a non-economist.
Exactly!!!! THAT is the essence of the anti-war crowd (not the anti-Bush crowd)
That viewpoint just drives me crazy. Those people are used to looking at things with a viewpoint that is 10 miles wide but a nanometer deep. They have never even analyzed it to that level.
Sowell is correct. The Kellogg-Briand pact was seen as the greatest advancement ever towards peace. It was, however, largely responsible for the carnage of WWII.
Peace activist = war enabler
Absolutely!
55. This should not cause surprise: to kill a human being, in whom the image of God is present, is a particularly serious sin. Only God is the master of life! Yet from the beginning, faced with the many and often tragic cases which occur in the life of individuals and society, Christian reflection has sought a fuller and deeper understanding of what God's commandment prohibits and prescribes. 43 There are in fact situations in which values proposed by God's Law seem to involve a genuine paradox. This happens for example in the case of legitimate defence, in which the right to protect one's own life and the duty not to harm someone else's life are difficult to reconcile in practice. Certainly, the intrinsic value of life and the duty to love oneself no less than others are the basis of a true right to self-defence. The demanding commandment of love of neighbour, set forth in the Old Testament and confirmed by Jesus, itself presupposes love of oneself as the basis of comparison: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself " (Mk 12:31). Consequently, no one can renounce the right to self-defence out of lack of love for life or for self. This can only be done in virtue of a heroic love which deepens and transfigures the love of self into a radical self-offering, according to the spirit of the Gospel Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:38-40). The sublime example of this self-offering is the Lord Jesus himself.Evangelium vitaeMoreover, "legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the State".44 Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason. 45
43 Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2263-2269; cf. also Catechism of the Council of Trent III, §§ 327-332.
44 Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2265.
45 Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 64, a. 7; Saint Alphonsus De' Liguori, Theologia Moralis, l. III, tr. 4, c. 1, dub.3.
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