Posted by
Bobby Fernandez on Wednesday, November 05, 2008 12:00:00 AM
We all said the world would never be the same. I woke up that fateful morning on my way to football practice. The initial impact of reports of a plane crash stopped me in my tracks presumably more so than others. I had gone to bed on 9/10/01 having just said goodbye to my high school sweetheart as she made her transatlantic trip to her new school in London. As the details trickled out to this side of the continent, I felt both relief and horror. The news progressively got worse. Some of us had never been witness to this type of evil. A nation united amongst the rubble, flying their flags, holding hands and promising to “never forget”.
Nearly eight years later, we stand at the foothills of a mountain of uncertainty. We have not been attacked since 2001. Some argue that the reason we were attacked is because we are hated in the rest of the world and our image has to be restored. The American people voiced their desire for change. A change that would make us loved by other people in the world. Let us not forget that Osama Bin Laden didn’t just wake up the morning Bush took office and cooked up the plan to take down the World Trade Center. That had been planned years in advance and would have happened even if Gore would have been elected. We are not as hated in the world as the left would make us out to be. I quote Dennis Prager, “It isn’t the world that hates America, its the left that hates America.” We are hated by the left because we remain the single force for a prospering nation based on Judeo-Christian values and a capitalists society. We are the most powerful force for good in the world and they don’t like it. The world’s left will only like us or respect us when we are as powerless and cowardly as them. We have made a great bargain with the world; We’ll elect a leftist, if you stop calling us racists.
Obama has made it completely clear that he want’s to “fundamentally change” our nation. He has stated that he seeks to appoint Judges not who will interpret the constitution as our forefathers intended, but would judge with empathy. This is as unwise as having a referee who calls a game in favor of the trailing team and disregards the fundamental rules of play. Obama and everyone he has associated with in public life seek to make our nation a mirror image of Western Europe. I needn’t point out that they, not we, have been attacked since 9/11/01. The cowardice of western European nations has been vividly demonstrated in the recent trouble in the Balkans and the Russian invasion of Georgia. The only reason European nations could cut their military spending and play a more pacifistic role in the world, thereby improving their global image, is because they knew America had their back should they get into any real trouble. If we follow in their footsteps and cut military spending by 25% like Obama wants, who will get our back? The only reason Georgia, The Ukraine, and other eastern block nations remain sovereign today is because we stood firmly against Russia and didn’t cast equal culpability like Sen. Obama initially did.
Democracies are fickle when it comes to war. It is mainly a testament of the good nature of man and his will to reduce suffering. As demonstrated in ancient Greece, public support for war is cyclical. We all seek to minimize suffering and vanquish evil. The initial evil quickly gets replaced for some by the horrors of war and public opinion turns into pacifism. During the first and second Peloponnesian wars, Athens (democracy) wavered in resolve to defeat Sparta (oligarchy). Athens entered the war as a superpower and left it a disheveled city-state. As fighting goes on, the reason for the war, and all it’s atrocities go forgotten by some. I shiver at the thought of predicting another terror attack on this nation in the near future, however I am keeping my promise to “never forget”.