Why We Fight

There are those with a long, and clear, view of history who say that the story of civilization is mostly the story of Mesopotamia, and that is mostly true, at least from a chronological standpoint, but to appreciate the fullness of our great story, we need to take it a step or two further.

Civilization was birthed in the first city, Sumer, where for the first time in history humans did things very differently then we did before. We not only lived together in numbers and concentrations like never before, we also cooperated together in ways like never before.

Our new ways of cooperating gave birth to agriculture, to science, to medicine, to writing, to literature, to astronomy, to the rule of law, to a preference for diplomacy over violence, even to such common-seeming things as how we count time, and how live next to each other in rectangular dwellings off of roads. But maybe the most important idea was that the governance of this new thing, this civilization, should be responsible stewards of the welfare of the people, and the land. This idea is not inseparable from actual cities and nations, or organization at scale, as many cruel lessons of history over the millennia have proven sadly, and repeatedly to those who will learn the lessons of history, but the idea of responsible stewardship of the people and the land is truly inseparable from civilization itself.

And over the youthful centuries that followed, the grasp of the embrace of civilization both ebbed and flowed, with the vagrancies of nature and time, and against the parallel growing power of uncivilized, organization at scale.

And on some rugged and rocky craigs, a tiny band of our forefathers sprung forward farther than the whole world had in the previous thousand or two years, nor would for a thousand or two years to come, bringing science, the arts, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, the rule of law, and thought itself to heretofore undreamed of, and staggering, heights. But perhaps the most precious gift they gave us was the joining of governance and law along with the idea that not only should governance be responsible stewards of the people and the land, but that the people themselves had a formal right to help define what that responsible stewardship should look like.

And off in a dusty corner of the world, a great spiritual awakening was born, which would soon become pivotal to our story.

And as the Christian peoples spread throughout the world, they attempted to found and defend their cities of civilization against the barbarians and un-Godly forces organized at scale on one hand, and also their own immature ideas of how civilized governance by Godly people should work, on the other.

These Christians struggled greatly for nearly two millennia before finding their footing on the shores of our new world, where our forefathers once again, in miraculous leaps far exceeding what the rest of humanity had achieved in thousands of years previous, advanced civilization.

Here in our Land, the common man could with honest work could achieve wealth and comfort beyond ancient kings’ wildest imaginations and travel not just the land and water with speeds never before imagined, but the air itself, like no people had ever done before, and communicate with others almost instantly at great distances. Our people brought an electric light to conquer primeval darkness.

Our scientists could not just imagine the heavens, but could reach out and touch them, and journeyed even inward, by powers of 10, to our genetic code and deep into the atoms themselves, and where stones and beads of counting grew into the managed herds of electrons of computers and cell phones and the internet and beyond.

We stand here today, defending our city on the hill, against barbarians, still.

When one looks down into the abyss, from our city on the hill, upon gazing deeply, one realizes that not only do we fight against the barbarians, the barbarians also fight against us, and with their own weapons and with their own demons. We should gird our loins to do battle with barbarians and their demons, and not just other cities on other hills.

Some people point to Xi, as if it were a new thing, but it is not a new thing, it is a sad story, a common story, as old as time itself, for Xi is no more than Shi Huangdi, and countless, nameless, worthless others, and the story is of the strong who subjugate the weak, for their own benefit.

What we do is much better. It is where the strong protect the weak, for the benefit of all, and as a surprising result, the weak, then become strong. Together, they can protect themselves, and others as well, and as another surprising result, the riches accruing surpass that of even the most terrible and avaricious of despots.

But there are always those who stand against those who would be their brother’s keeper, and would not only only serve themselves, but also would ruthlessly deny others the freedom to do anything but serve them, and deny their inherent value, dignity, and God given rights.

Over the millennia, these people looked in on our first city, or our city on the hill, and even today, eye us with envy, and see only plunder, with a sad, and tiny vision that fails to see past the golden eggs to the goose beyond.

And even if the goose that had laid golden eggs before were to lay as a roasted feast before them, they will only peck and pry at it, like angry chickens with awkward little wooden sticks, because slaves are forbidden weapons, and only the most hapless and hopeless of slaves see that as a virtue, whereas free men eat with knives, and always have, and always will.

So, when you look at Xi, see the same oppressive, controlling criminal as came thousands of years before, a retrograde force even then, and the people of the lie who would describe this as anything but a barbaric, backward, uncivilized and cruel culture, whose failure and obstinate refusal to join the advances of humanity and civilization over the last few thousands of years should be looked on by civilized people the way we should look at a 12 year old child who, despite having proper examples, only knows how to steal from others and soil itself, and exhibits supreme pride in both of those behaviors.

In Sumer, the Gutians came, and the Sumarians could never have imagined the whole world at war (Nobody expects the Gutians; their chief weapon was surprise. And fear.). 1914 came and people could never have imagined the whole world at war. 1939 came, and people could never have imagined the whole world at war again. 2019 came, and people could finally imagine fighting the last war, again, and our military was prepared to fight the last war again, they were prepared very well for that, but, sadly, not what actually happened.

Our people never imagined the whole world at war meant, this time, their own governments, their own doctors, their own news media, their own families, their own immune systems, their own thoughts, and their own feelings were at war with them, in ways never before seen, in ways that made men with guns fighting over a line between two pieces of land seem strangely antiquated, or, maybe sometimes, just a diversion.

We dig our feet firmly in, we ourselves are the bridgehead protecting the people and land that we love, and we hold the line, no matter the cost, as every day more of our brethren suddenly awaken to the clamor of the battle raging all around us, and rush to our side to reinforce us and join the fight against the terrible evil arrayed against us, the storm will rage, the tide will turn, and together, we will be unstoppable.

The best is yet to come, for all of us, not bound by creed or color or geography, but for all of us, every one.

And as the story is told now, of how most of history is the history of Mesopotamia, thousands of years from now, the story of history, and civilization, that most beautiful and precious and sometime precarious thread, born of Mesopotamian mud, grown strong and brash among harsh Athenian stones, and stood up, full grown, straight and proud and strong in our beautiful American heartland where it unleashed the best of what lies within us, will be as bountiful blessings for our people and our land, to be picked up by all people, in all lands, with their own hands, to be made their own, in their own beautiful ways, for thousands of years to come.

Because we do not care what color is your skin, how you wear your hair, what clothes you wear, the language you speak, or where you live.

If you hold dear in your heart the love of peace and the rule of law where all people are treated as equals before the law, and of cooperation, and compromise in matters other than of principle, and in the belief that all people are born with immutable and inalienable rights such as freedom, of the liberty to speak, live, believe, travel, contract, own property free and clear, and associate as you desire, without intrusion on the rights of others, and the inherent right to defend themselves and those rights with the most effective of tools against any and all who would threaten them, and that government should be a limited, accountable and transparent servant and steward of the people and their land, restrained by the people themselves, then you are are us, and we are you.

May God bless us all with a happy new year, and thousands more to come.

Now go fight.