Christian Democrats in the United States
Conceptual Issues - U.S. and HistoryWhether we believe that Jesus Christ was God's incarnation or not, we believe in the message of peace and redemption for all people, and of our free wills that no person or country can ever take, even by death. We can all learn to live in a world without fighting.
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Monday, January 18, 2010
12:09 PM
The UK plans to ban the latest group of Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, who calls for muslims to unite to establish sharia law in the UK.
Why are these two stories related?
Obviously, Anjem Choudary is a nut. Sharia law is in itself terrorism. Although incomplete and fallible themselves, if the safeguards of common law against human mistakes are thrown aside, the state becomes a power struggle of personal violence, and the people are thrown back into uncivilized anarchy. Under Sharia law and all forms of religious or secular fascism, the state is no longer connected to the reason why people naturally come together in town halls and temples: to make the best decisions they can. Those who come for selfish reasons, leave with a better understanding of others, and those who come from pure altruism come down from their lofty perch and get their hands dirty, doing the real work of moving society along. If officials in government leave behind those purposes, they become preoccupied solely with their own power. Religion is just one of the many tools such deceivers use to control their flocks, though it is not always a tool of such vile men, such as in Myanmar.
However, Anjem Choudary insists on protesting, on shouting from the mountains the truth of what he's seen on "the other side," where only violence reigns, where women and children are blown to bits by allied bombs and insane terrorists on a daily basis, and he is justifiably all the more angry when facing the implacable, utterly wealthy hypocrisy of the British populace, who are too cowardly to confront their own government.
I think Mr. Choudary is wrong that all British soldiers overseas are rapists and baby killers. However, Britain, like America, like the middle east, like everyplace humans live, has problems with violence. It's a problem we don't want to face. More than that, it's a problem that officials who have gained power really don't want people to face, by and large. A hundred years ago, the crown would have sent brutal boys like these two brothers to India or somewhere else, where their talent for brutality would have been applied in service of the state. The Royalty thought that if it could keep the public from confronting the spirit of violence, in the way we might imagine Jesus would expect us to, that they could breed that violence into a tool to subjugate the colonies. Mahatma Ghandi defeated the British with non-violence, but even today, Britons have a unique talent for compartmentalizing their thought and personalities, ignoring the history of war, that injustice is common, rape is common, and massacre is common, and for disavowing their personal responsibility in a democracy by hiding behind the Crown.
The question for Americans is, do you want to live that kind of dishonest life in the mind, where people don't acknowledge the reality of the rampant chaos and the blood our armed forces spill overseas? It happened in Vietnam. It may be happening again. The only way we found out in Vietnam was because soldiers had the courage to stand out of line and do the right thing.
If we allow our armed forces to become chaotic, that evil Mr. Hyde to the Dr. Jekyll of our "high and mighty" democracy, then they will do everything one might expect. In the zeal of our soldiers' violence, they would sow the seeds for nuts like Anjem Choudary to demand the overthrow of everything good about life in freedom. Nuts like Anjem Choudary would "throw out the baby with the bathwater" and plunge society back into darkness.
If military people choose their course of action to impose order on chaos, to make the world a better place, then they must impose order on themselves. Otherwise, they may become that Mr. Hyde: every human being is susceptible to the sin of rage. With a weapon in hand, and a system of symbols there to subsume individual moral judgment into unchangeable policy of the organization, every human being risks being every bit the rapist or baby killer that Anjem Choudary accuses at all the British. Like it or not, humans have a proclivity for violence, and ignoring it does not make it go away.
Faced with a choice of cliffs to walk off, it's time for America to make a decision. Do we go the way of violence, being led down the path toward chaos by al-Qaeda and the endless interplay of that hydra and the beasts of fascist government? That path leads either to fascism or chaos, but it is a false choice. The other path is for the world to walk forward together in faith and forgiveness. It was possible for Britain and India, and it is possible for the whole world.
These boys might have been sent to India 100 years ago
Two problem children in England, long neglected by social services bureaucracies as they killed small animals and burnt down buildings, beat the crap out of two smaller boys and left one in a coma.The UK plans to ban the latest group of Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, who calls for muslims to unite to establish sharia law in the UK.
Why are these two stories related?
Obviously, Anjem Choudary is a nut. Sharia law is in itself terrorism. Although incomplete and fallible themselves, if the safeguards of common law against human mistakes are thrown aside, the state becomes a power struggle of personal violence, and the people are thrown back into uncivilized anarchy. Under Sharia law and all forms of religious or secular fascism, the state is no longer connected to the reason why people naturally come together in town halls and temples: to make the best decisions they can. Those who come for selfish reasons, leave with a better understanding of others, and those who come from pure altruism come down from their lofty perch and get their hands dirty, doing the real work of moving society along. If officials in government leave behind those purposes, they become preoccupied solely with their own power. Religion is just one of the many tools such deceivers use to control their flocks, though it is not always a tool of such vile men, such as in Myanmar.
However, Anjem Choudary insists on protesting, on shouting from the mountains the truth of what he's seen on "the other side," where only violence reigns, where women and children are blown to bits by allied bombs and insane terrorists on a daily basis, and he is justifiably all the more angry when facing the implacable, utterly wealthy hypocrisy of the British populace, who are too cowardly to confront their own government.
I think Mr. Choudary is wrong that all British soldiers overseas are rapists and baby killers. However, Britain, like America, like the middle east, like everyplace humans live, has problems with violence. It's a problem we don't want to face. More than that, it's a problem that officials who have gained power really don't want people to face, by and large. A hundred years ago, the crown would have sent brutal boys like these two brothers to India or somewhere else, where their talent for brutality would have been applied in service of the state. The Royalty thought that if it could keep the public from confronting the spirit of violence, in the way we might imagine Jesus would expect us to, that they could breed that violence into a tool to subjugate the colonies. Mahatma Ghandi defeated the British with non-violence, but even today, Britons have a unique talent for compartmentalizing their thought and personalities, ignoring the history of war, that injustice is common, rape is common, and massacre is common, and for disavowing their personal responsibility in a democracy by hiding behind the Crown.
The question for Americans is, do you want to live that kind of dishonest life in the mind, where people don't acknowledge the reality of the rampant chaos and the blood our armed forces spill overseas? It happened in Vietnam. It may be happening again. The only way we found out in Vietnam was because soldiers had the courage to stand out of line and do the right thing.
If we allow our armed forces to become chaotic, that evil Mr. Hyde to the Dr. Jekyll of our "high and mighty" democracy, then they will do everything one might expect. In the zeal of our soldiers' violence, they would sow the seeds for nuts like Anjem Choudary to demand the overthrow of everything good about life in freedom. Nuts like Anjem Choudary would "throw out the baby with the bathwater" and plunge society back into darkness.
If military people choose their course of action to impose order on chaos, to make the world a better place, then they must impose order on themselves. Otherwise, they may become that Mr. Hyde: every human being is susceptible to the sin of rage. With a weapon in hand, and a system of symbols there to subsume individual moral judgment into unchangeable policy of the organization, every human being risks being every bit the rapist or baby killer that Anjem Choudary accuses at all the British. Like it or not, humans have a proclivity for violence, and ignoring it does not make it go away.
Faced with a choice of cliffs to walk off, it's time for America to make a decision. Do we go the way of violence, being led down the path toward chaos by al-Qaeda and the endless interplay of that hydra and the beasts of fascist government? That path leads either to fascism or chaos, but it is a false choice. The other path is for the world to walk forward together in faith and forgiveness. It was possible for Britain and India, and it is possible for the whole world.
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