Richard Fernandez on Christian Militias in Iraq: The Odds Against.
- Yes to the God-created right of self defense and all government codes that recognize it. Self defense, and the arms that go with it, is always in the absence of stable government, or in support the lesser magistrate against an overweening empire. Militias against the police are called something else, since any legitimate militia would begin its recruitment among its most likely volunteers – the police.
- Requiring some kind of overarching political coordination of the final collapse of the Ottoman empire by some Western administration strikes me as that very sort of overweening empire. I’m conflicted on this one: As a Christian and a Soldier, I recognize some responsibility for us as Americans to act as the world’s police, especially in support of obvious non-negotiables, such as religious freedom. By all means protect the saints! On the other hand, as an American Soldier, I’m not really interested in picking sides as a civilization collapses. I’m not sure that liberty is a vine that can survive well on the trellis of a foreign military power.
- Here’s a thought experiment: Islamic civilization is collapsing (and good riddance). Who knows what will spring from the ashes? But European civilization collapsed once, and what came after was much better. Now imagine what would have happened to the West if China in its golden age had stepped in and rescued Europe from the barbarians. Would we exist at all today?
neumatikos 