On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Dan Minette wrote: > No hard feelings, but I think that your lack of familiarity with the > concept of being called is evident here. Many people can be God's > instrument. It depends on who answers the call. Ideally, many countries > would answer. It appears that the world is relying on the US to be the > only one that answers, and reserves the right to tell us when to answer and > when not to.
I see I've failed to make myself clear. I mean God's *chosen* instrument. As in "chosen people," tribe, or nation. If Bush feels personally called to use the might of the US to do good as best he understands it, that's one thing. If he wants to exhort the American people and the world to support him in the name of human decency, that's another. If lots of people feel the call and join him, that's yet another. So far we're in a mode of moral belief and understanding that can cross the secular and sectarian divide if one permits it (I say this because I believe religious people are not the only ones who feel purpose and obligations as calls or callings). I'd say that holds true even if Bush and others feel that America is in a unique position to answer a call and therefore hasn't the moral luxury to pass the buck, even to the UN security council. But if Bush and his cronies believe God is "calling" the nation as a whole in a manner unique and distinct from the way God calls everybody else, that's something else again -- especially if they think a unique authority accrues to themselves from such a call. It's this latter attitude, that America is privileged in God's sight, that I resist. It the attitude that God *put* America here because he knows the French and the Russians and the Germans (and pretty much everyone else except the British upper class) will be a bunch of spineless apostates that oozes from the GOP and which scares the hell out of me. It's an attitude that's not necessary for any argument stemming from humanitarian concern or from charitably understood self-interest, and the more it's reinforced the more likely it is to lead us to a colossal lesson in humility, IMO. And as for "calls" themselves, must the manner in which one answers an alleged call never be up for debate? Nor the priority of the world's numerous and competing calls? And where was this call in the 80's when we first learned Saddam was trying to eliminate the Kurds, or in the early 90's when we betrayed the Iraqi revolution we ourselves had encouraged? Allow me to be skeptical when the men currently in power say they've heard a "call," please. > I think the answer is that only folks who are also willing to pay the price > to answer the call have a right to protest or moderate or push > alternatives. I had great hopes that the US could have stepped down some > in the '90s, and let Europe handle the Balkans. It appears that Europe was > unwilling to do anything of significance. Indeed the Dutchbat report > faulted the US for asking for a consensus instead of telling Europe what it > would do. I agree Europe (or a part of Europe, I don't want to overgeneralize) is screwed up on this issue. I agree you have to be willing to pay the piper if you want to go to the dance. I'm not sure what this kind of conflict of interests and priorities has to do with the particular attitude I fear, though. I'm pretty sure that folly of others doesn't excuse my own excessive pride. Marvin Long Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA) http://www.breakyourchains.org/john_poindexter.htm _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
