“All we can decide is whether we shall meet them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or whether we shall make of our dealings with these new problems a dark and shameful page in our history. To refuse to deal with them at all merely amounts to dealing with them badly. We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot possibly solve it aright. The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over-civilized man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty lift that thrills "stern men with empires in their brains"—all these, of course, shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties;” - The Strenuous Life by Theodore Roosevelt.
The entire essay is worthy of the time spent reading it. It’s poignant because the essence addresses the same problem we are dealing with now; do we pull out immediately from Iraq, or do we stay and finish the job right?
To hear the ranting of the left, a great number of which have gathered a scant 200 miles away from me in Crawford, we should pull out immediately and adopt an isolationist mentality, at best, or become the hand that feeds the world, at worst. I simply find that attitude unacceptable. Our responsibility is to America, over all else. If another sovereign state is a threat to us, then we should remove the threat; by whatever means prudent and available. If one American life is taken, we should inflect pain and suffering on a level as to make taking American lives no longer worth the effort.
We need more men with ‘empires in their brains’.
-Daniel
No comments:
Post a Comment