We look forward to Christmas because it means a break from the normal routine of life that can be stressful. It’s a time for families, friends and fellowship. It’s festive and, when in the right perspective, joyous.
However, tens of thousands of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines won’t be home for Christmas celebrations. Instead, they will be doing the sacrificial duty of honor, protecting the rest of us and the freedom America offers.
This has been the case for our military from the beginning. After early defeats at the hands of British troops opening the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington chose Christmas Day 1776 to surreptitiously cross the frigid Delaware River in hopes of catching the mercenary Hessians off guard. The dangerous, frigid ploy was successful and started turning the tide of the war within the colonial ranks and against their adversaries.
The vicious World War II Battle of the Bulge began Dec. 16, 1944, along the borders of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Adolf Hitler ordered 200,000 German troops and 1,000 tanks to launch a massive surprise attack through the Ardennes Forest and break through allied lines all the way to Belgium’s Antwerp seaport. Short on supplies, ammunition, fuel and critically needed air support, U.S. troops on the ground were initially outnumbered and outgunned while enduring one of the coldest winters in over a century. Yet they managed to hold the Nazis at bay until Gen. George Patton’s Third Army could complete its northern march to halt the enemy’s advance.
It was a terrible Christmas of loss for American forces and their families back home. But the perseverance, courage and sacrifice of our troops delivered a crushing defeat for Hitler.
By New Year’s Day 1945, the Nazi army had been pushed back behind its national border. America and its allies never let Hitler have another chance at winning the war.
This Christmas, approximately 170,000 U.S active-duty military personnel will be stationed outside our nation, many on lonely duty. Few of these men and women will awaken to a family Christmas tree and home-cooked feasts. They took an oath to protect and defend our Constitution, to stand at their posts while we celebrate the birth of mankind’s Savior with family and friends.
Ours is an all-volunteer force, the most capable and best equipped fighting force on Earth. Their willing sacrifice keeps America safe and free, free to worship the King in God’s eternal Kingdom.
Christmas is the beginning of a story of supreme sacrifice. Jesus Christ left His place in Heaven to take on full humanity to deliver the Father’s final message of hope to our fallen world. Jesus’ humble arrival declared our future of “peace on Earth, good will toward men.” He alone could do this because He was and is sinless, the only human who could pay the price for the sins of all people for all time and open the door of reconciliation to God and redemption from eternal separation from Him.
Our Lord and Savior is the ultimate of how I’ve often described a hero: one who puts himself in harm’s way for the benefit of others.
Our husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers and mothers putting their personal desires aside to don military uniforms and step into the breach for us echoes Jesus’ Supreme Sacrifice.
As we gather this week to open presents, feast and enjoy the company of those we love, let us focus on the reasons and what makes it possible.
“For unto you (was) born (that) day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:11-12 ESV).
Pray for all those who cannot be home with us because they selflessly serve us all over the world.
Photo: AP
“Your self is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow….
If a man dies fighting for his own freedom, it is not a [selfless] sacrifice: he is not willing to live as a slave; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who’s willing….
You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service — it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one’s country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as a conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous [selfish] virtue. Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you realize it.” – Ayn Rand, address given to the graduating class of West Point, 1974
Part 1
“If a man dies fighting for his own freedom, it is not a [selfless] sacrifice: he is not willing to live as a slave; but it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who’s willing….”
The issue is that few people die fighting purely for their own freedom, but also for the freedom and wellbeing of others, like their kin. Because it turns out that selfish and selfless motives are usually intertwined deeply.
“You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service — ”
There’s something perverse about someone who is so deep into Rand’s nonsense that they assume “you are dedicated to selfless service” would be an insult. Such is the problem with those who assume altruism is an evil.
“it is not a virtue in my morality. ”
Neither is honesty, nor thoroughness of knowledge, nor basic competence in analysis.
You have no understanding of what Ayn Rand is talking about and I really don’t care that you don’t. It’s not worth my rationally self-interested time to try and enlighten you. You mean nothing to me or my rationally selfish interest.
If you care to enlighten your SELF “The Virtue Of Selfishness” is available in PDF for free online.
Suffice to say, Ayn Rand and her philosophy will live on. And if there is to be a future it is her philosophy that that future will depend upon. Aristotle, John Locke, and Ayn Rand, if there is a future for America, those three philosophers will be the ones venerated in America.
As for your Judeo-Christianity, in a free society where Objectivism is the dominant philosophy, every man will be free to follow the conclusions of his thinking, even if that thinking is false, so long as he doesn’t initiate force against others to force them to believe in his religion.
“The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense. A holdup man seeks to gain a value, wealth, by killing his victim; the victim does not grow richer by killing a holdup man. The principle is: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force.” – Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics”, from “The Virtue Of Selfishness”
“”“The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man.”
I note Rand’s specific emphasis on physical force. Probably because specifying other kinds of force such as financial force, psychological force, emotional force, and so forth would be too much of a hypocrisy even for her since she used all of those on (among others) her poor husband. Which is why many of her behaviors are literal textbook studies in a manipulative and parasitic personality among psychologists.
“Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.”
Which I agree with. The issue is how we define “retaliation” and “those who initiate its use.”
” The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense. A holdup man seeks to gain a value, wealth, by killing his victim; the victim does not grow richer by killing a holdup man. The principle is: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force.” –”
The problem with this is simple. Firstly: Many societies did allow the victim to get wealth and value by killing their attacker, and indeed if there was -say – a bounty for them they would.
Secondly: The use of violence is wrong not because it is getting value from others but on a more fundamental level. A spree killer who goes around murdering those they come across without stealing anything material for them is at least as grave a malcontent as the hold up man.
Part 1
“You have no understanding of what Ayn Rand is talking about and I really don’t care that you don’t.”
Ah yes, the irrational, superstitious accusation that if someone disagrees with the scriptures they have simply misread them.
The truth is that I do understand a great deal of what Ayn Rand is talking about, and I even agree with much of it. But unlike you, I do not read her uncritically. And I am more than happy to call her out when she engages in sophistry, double standards, goal post shifting, or is simply, objectively wrong (like her claim that the modern world owes itself solely to Aristotle).
This is all the more ironic considering you routinely, ACTUALLY have no understanding of the sources you read and cite (which is why you engage in idiocy such as that Christian mercy would preclude people punishing “naughty listers” by not giving them presents), as well as other things.
” It’s not worth my rationally self-interested time to try and enlighten you.”
Because the last time you tried, I utterly humiliated you and your sources by showing how little they understood and how you were engaging in far more irrational, superstitious bigotry than I was.
Which is why you now cut and run whenever I call you out and dismantle your claims where they are wrong.
Part 2
The irony of course is that by doing so you are engaging in one of the oldest logical fallacies known to man and one Aristotle would have recognized. The Ad Hominem. Dismissing the messenger of an argument as a substitute for actually dismissing said argument.
By refusing to debate, you allow my refutations of your claims to stand, unchallenged.
Even if it is not worth your “self-interested time” to try and “enlighten me” is it not worth your “self-interested time” to try and defend your laboriously-repeated claims from debunking?
Apparently not.
Which also handily underlines that you waste your “self-interested time” fruitlessly., making labored, illogical, and tedious blather but refusing to actually defend it when it is called out for what it is.
“You mean nothing to me or my rationally selfish interest.”
Obviously not, considering you bothered to respond to me with insults, false accusations, and this openly contemptuous display of what is supposed to be “meaning nothing.”
But in any case, I personally am unimportant (as are you) in the merits of this argument. What matters are the evidence and arguments I muster, and your refusal to engage with them underlines your failure to understand even what Aristotle did get right.
Part 3″
“If you care to enlighten your SELF “The Virtue Of Selfishness” is available in PDF for free online.”
I hate to tell you this, but I already read it. It wasn’t a terrible book compared to some things (like the middle third or so of This Is John Galt Speaking), but it was also no great revelation, dependent on many exaggerations and logical fallacies.
This is something you are unequipped to counter. Someone who reads your scripture, understands it, and rejects most of it on its merits (or lack thereof). Which is something you are ill-positioned to handle because critical reading and logic are not skills you treat.
“Suffice to say, Ayn Rand and her philosophy will live on.”
Yes, they shall, as will such eccentricities as Theosophy, abnormalities like the Church of Unification and Critical Race Theory, and atrocities like National Socialism and Marxism.
That does not however mean they will amount to much. As indeed the Objectivists continue to fail to do.
Part 4
” And if there is to be a future it is her philosophy that that future will depend upon. ”
What intoxicating hubris. The future – good, bad, or more likely mixed- will come regardless of what we do. The question is if we or our successors will be there when its various stages and eras arrive. And suffice it to say, Rand’s incredibly self-defeating, cutlish, and purposefully obscurantist creed will play rather little role in it in comparison to that of some of her disillusioned acolytes like Friedman.
“Aristotle, John Locke, and Ayn Rand, if there is a future for America, those three philosophers will be the ones venerated in America.”
Aristotle is already venerated and was venerated throughout the duration of the “Christian Dark Ages” you keep blathering about (which by itself points to the problem with Aristotle Idolatry by Rand). He is just no longer venerated uncritically as he was (ironically that was one of the major philosophical stumbling blocks in the “Christian Dark Ages”). In large part because we recognize he is wrong.
Part 5
Locke is also revered and correctly so, though some of his theories have started to get frays on them (including the social contract theory – which I note was about individuals coming together to form a collective). I can only hope he retains so.
But Rand? Rand was far more of a poet than she was a thinker, and this is shown by how her main legacy is literary rather than philosophical, further undermined by the many times she was wrong. In the end she will have far less influence than that of her disillusioned heirs such as Friedman, and quite well.
Part 7
As for your Judeo-Christianity, in a free society where Objectivism is the dominant philosophy, every man will be free to follow the conclusions of his thinking, even if that thinking is false, so long as he doesn’t initiate force against others to force them to believe in his religion.”
Which is where we get into a key rub.
Firstly: We already live in a society quite like that now, though it is crumbling in part due to the unmoored connection to our tradition.
Secondly: It is very unlikely we will ever see a “free society where Objectivism is the dominant philosophy”, since it will most likely balkanize along the lines of various gurus who are just as willing to use force (explicit or otherwise) to exert their will, much like Rand’s gaslighting of her husband to justify her domestic abuses and infidelities in a society whose roots she greatly misunderstood and insisted on using largely for her own ends. She knew how to enjoy freedom but not how to propagate it, especially on a large scale.
This is clear most evidently in her cultlike behavior towards those in her social circle and mirrored by the borderline psychopathic behavior of her literary heroes (who I might note would not be that out of character being some of the real life chief “Wreckers” like Stalin or Mao).
Part 2
“In my morality, the defense of one’s country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as a conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. ”
Which is easy enough to refute by pointing to the examples of the Chinese who fought against ruthless foreign invaders such as the Mongols and Dark Valley Japanese, the Russians who resisted the Crimean Khans, Napoleon, Second Reich, and Third Reich. Who were clearly slaves but who decided that it was better to fight and die for their own collective and the defense of themselves. Because you seem to forget that most people in most societies throughout history have been enserfed or enslaved to one degree or another.
“This is an enormous [selfish] virtue. Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you realize it.” – Ayn Rand, address given to the graduating class of West Point, 1974
”
Fair enough, but the willingness to sell out one’s fellows or one’s own integrity for a good enough deal is also quite a selfish act, virtuous or not. As Wu Sangui might attest. There are Selfish Virtues, and there are Selfless Virtues, as there are Selfish Vices and Selfless Vices (like the pathological altruism you describe). It is important to recognize the differences.
The man is protecting his country putting his life on the line and you and Rand have to make a political point?
Typical philosopher thought, I don’t know why I’m surprised.
A philosopher would respond that the author is also making a religiously political point too, so I will save you the trouble.
How many people have you and Rand persuaded to ditch their irrational belief? Infinitely less than the Marxist professors who indoctrinate.
*And so I was thinking to myself , how can I tie Objectivism and my hatred of altruism to anything and everything, and in the process show the world how much I hate America and what a coward I am. Hmm. I know, I will cut and paste a boring, extra long screed by Ayn Rand for the 1 millionth time* — THX 1138
*I don’t recognize any such absurdity as service to my country. I recognize a moral responsibility to my freedom and liberty and the freedom and liberty of those I love.* THX 1138
Thus spake the rationally selfish Objectivist. Don’t worry, nobody will be calling on you for anything
Hebrews 12: 2 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
does that mean veteran’s day is now about the birth of Jesus ?
Where exactly are our freedoms at risk except here at home where the military is not centered?
There’s been a lot of sacrifice in this country in my lifetime, more than 400,000 in WWII, and thousands in no-win wars. Did these people die to create the corruption we have in Washington today? Are our “leaders” in Washington sacrificing today?
Our leaders better “lead” in getting this country back to its roots so Americans can feel good about sacrificing.
“Feel good about sacrificng”. LOL! That’s truly twisted funny!
Yogi Berra couldn’t have put it better, let’s get back to feeling good about sacrificing. LOL!
You have to go to your friend’s funerals, because if you don’t, they won’t come to yours.
Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.
LOL!
Two points.
General Patton was correct. We defeated the wrong enemy.
If u.s. troops were protecting our freedom and the Constitution, they’d be occupying Washington. That’s where the enemies of White america rules from.