Tuesday, November 29, 2005
On the Age of Men
My co-blogger, Mr. Bloggs, recently put up a post with a good, succinct response to Rep. Murtha’s cowardly desire to abandon the Liberal Iraqis to our mutual enemies. The post links to an excerpt from the character Aragorn’s rallying speech to the troops of Gondor in The Return of The King. For those of you who cannot play the clip, the heart of his speech is:
“Hold your ground! Hold your ground!
Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers,
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends
and break all bonds of fellowship,
but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we fight!!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!!!”
This is certainly an appropriate response to Rep. Murtha’s despicable desire to abandon our friends in Iraq. There is one minor nit I have to pick with this speech in the context of The West’s current predicament, however. Aragorn was fighting for an “age of men”, but I don’t think that is an appropriate term for what we now fight for.
When Islamofacists cut off the heads of their enemies or kill children to terrorize a neighborhood into obeying them Western pundits call them “inhuman” and “monsters” and wonder “how can people do such a thing?”. The Islamofacists are centainly inhumane and evil, but they are also certainly not inhuman monsters. They are very human, and it is dangerous of us to deny that human beings can and do behave in this despicable way. Anyone who thinks that treating women like property, killing and enslaving people who are different than you, terrorizing your neighbors into obedience, and taking pleasure in the pain and humiliation of your enemies is not a natural human condition must not know much about history or anthropology. The enemies of The West are not inhuman oddities; they are people behaving like people have since before history began. We are the exceptions, not them. The multiculturalists like to believe that a Universtiy campus is the end result of human nature, and that all cultures would naturally produce decent and civilized citizens whose main difference from The West is the quaint native dances and the exotic local food that they sampled on their latest alumni travel junket. The unpleasant truth is that an oppressed man’s first instinct is not to dream of living in a free society where he is equal to his oppressor. An oppressed man’s first instinct is to dream of still living in a tyranny, but one where he is on top and his current oppressors get to feel his boot on their throats.
The West does not fight now for an “age of men,” our enemies do. Alone the Islamofacists cannot prevail, but modern Western civilization has more enemies than just ruthless Mohammadans. It is my fear that together those enemies will tear down the institutions that made The West such an exception to the natural condition of mankind and then fall on each other as each faction wants to be the one on top with all others under their bootheel. I fear that we may see a return to the Age of Men. It will be a shame, too. I will dearly miss the Age of Laws.
“Hold your ground! Hold your ground!
Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers,
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends
and break all bonds of fellowship,
but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we fight!!
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!!!”
This is certainly an appropriate response to Rep. Murtha’s despicable desire to abandon our friends in Iraq. There is one minor nit I have to pick with this speech in the context of The West’s current predicament, however. Aragorn was fighting for an “age of men”, but I don’t think that is an appropriate term for what we now fight for.
When Islamofacists cut off the heads of their enemies or kill children to terrorize a neighborhood into obeying them Western pundits call them “inhuman” and “monsters” and wonder “how can people do such a thing?”. The Islamofacists are centainly inhumane and evil, but they are also certainly not inhuman monsters. They are very human, and it is dangerous of us to deny that human beings can and do behave in this despicable way. Anyone who thinks that treating women like property, killing and enslaving people who are different than you, terrorizing your neighbors into obedience, and taking pleasure in the pain and humiliation of your enemies is not a natural human condition must not know much about history or anthropology. The enemies of The West are not inhuman oddities; they are people behaving like people have since before history began. We are the exceptions, not them. The multiculturalists like to believe that a Universtiy campus is the end result of human nature, and that all cultures would naturally produce decent and civilized citizens whose main difference from The West is the quaint native dances and the exotic local food that they sampled on their latest alumni travel junket. The unpleasant truth is that an oppressed man’s first instinct is not to dream of living in a free society where he is equal to his oppressor. An oppressed man’s first instinct is to dream of still living in a tyranny, but one where he is on top and his current oppressors get to feel his boot on their throats.
The West does not fight now for an “age of men,” our enemies do. Alone the Islamofacists cannot prevail, but modern Western civilization has more enemies than just ruthless Mohammadans. It is my fear that together those enemies will tear down the institutions that made The West such an exception to the natural condition of mankind and then fall on each other as each faction wants to be the one on top with all others under their bootheel. I fear that we may see a return to the Age of Men. It will be a shame, too. I will dearly miss the Age of Laws.
