Political, philosophical, and theological reflections from a Christian idealist with libertarian leanings and a professional interest in science and mathematics.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Whimsical Winston Churchill Quotation
"Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all."
The great thing about this quote is that each word has less than six lttrs.
Oh, and don’t forget Churchill’s note to General Ismay re: dropping poison gas on German cities (and ridiculing as “Psalm singers” those Christians who might object); he also wanted to do something with anthrax, too, I believe. In principle, Churchill and America were no different from the Nazis re: the murder of civilians. See, please, among other books, Ronald Schaffer’s “Wings Of Judgment: American Bombing In World War II” (Oxford, 1985). And of course there is America’s allowing more than 50 million abortions, the murder of innocent human beings in the womb* – 50 million being the approximate number of all those killed, on both sides, in World War II – 50 million being three times the population of Iraq whose dictator we said was the focus of all evil in the world because he killed an estimated one million people. We have shed a lot of innocent blood – which God says in His Word He hates. We are morally qualified to judge NOBODY!
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com Recovering Republican JLof@aol.com
* There’s more than a 9/11 in the womb, every day in America, round the clock, 24/7.
Wow, I hardly expected my whimsical quotation to earn such a provocative response.
There's a lot in what you say in the way of warning, but I will say this: none of us are in a position to condemn outright, but we are all in a position as humans to judge carefully and not hastily. We must think things through, recognizing all the subtleties of various situations. War is always a tricky situation. Anyone who has ever shown any sort of bravery in battle has had to get his hands dirty, perhaps sacrificing some amount of moral purity. Abortion is also not a cut-and-dry issue, although I happen to agree with your assessment. Like slavery in the old South, however, there are real reasons why people seek to uphold the status quo.
We can make judgments on all of these issues, and in the end everyone from Churchill to Hitler to slave-owners to abortionists, and even your average American citizen, will come out looking anywhere from pretty dirty to very evil. But, IMHO, all of our judgments must be careful and not hasty, and we must not be so impassioned as to be unmerciful in our estimation of fellow human beings.
Oh, and don’t forget Churchill’s note to General Ismay re: dropping poison gas on German cities (and ridiculing as “Psalm singers” those Christians who might object); he also wanted to do something with anthrax, too, I believe. In principle, Churchill and America were no different from the Nazis re: the murder of civilians. See, please, among other books, Ronald Schaffer’s “Wings Of Judgment: American Bombing In World War II” (Oxford, 1985). And of course there is America’s allowing more than 50 million abortions, the murder of innocent human beings in the womb* – 50 million being the approximate number of all those killed, on both sides, in World War II – 50 million being three times the population of Iraq whose dictator we said was the focus of all evil in the world because he killed an estimated one million people. We have shed a lot of innocent blood – which God says in His Word He hates. We are morally qualified to judge NOBODY!
ReplyDeleteJohn Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
* There’s more than a 9/11 in the womb, every day in America, round the clock, 24/7.
Wow, I hardly expected my whimsical quotation to earn such a provocative response.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot in what you say in the way of warning, but I will say this: none of us are in a position to condemn outright, but we are all in a position as humans to judge carefully and not hastily. We must think things through, recognizing all the subtleties of various situations. War is always a tricky situation. Anyone who has ever shown any sort of bravery in battle has had to get his hands dirty, perhaps sacrificing some amount of moral purity. Abortion is also not a cut-and-dry issue, although I happen to agree with your assessment. Like slavery in the old South, however, there are real reasons why people seek to uphold the status quo.
We can make judgments on all of these issues, and in the end everyone from Churchill to Hitler to slave-owners to abortionists, and even your average American citizen, will come out looking anywhere from pretty dirty to very evil. But, IMHO, all of our judgments must be careful and not hasty, and we must not be so impassioned as to be unmerciful in our estimation of fellow human beings.