Heroes

In the last few days I've watched a couple of movies. "The Patriot", and "Steel Dawn". Both of the heroes in the movies are fighters. In "The Patriot", the fighter is especially reluctant. And at one point in the movie, he says something to the effect of "what gives men the idea that death is ever justified"? In the latter movie, a boy wants the hero to teach him to fight, and says in the end that he wants to be like "Nomad", the hero. Nomad tells him, no, you don't want to be like me. You want to be a farmer.

In both movies, the heroes are men capable of great violence and are instrumental in vanquishing an oppressive enemy. And when the deed is done, everyone goes back to farming. The world is safe, and no one need fight again. And it's a part of the Science Fiction and Fantasy myths as well. It's something deeply ingrained in us. It's what we want, and it is noble.

But there's only one problem with it.

There will always rise someone whose motives are not noble and who is willing to commit great violence to get people to ... shall we say ... see things their way. Stalinists. Facists. Nazis. Islamists. Common criminals. Uncle Norbert. As long as they think nobody will seriously stand up to them, they will wield their evil without concience. And they will always be among us.

War is bad. It is terrible. It is the worst thing man does to himself. Yet if good people won't fight it then all are doomed to live under the worst of tyrannies.

One of the many effective Lefty slogans used to argue against US Military action is "So 'Might Makes Right?'" And the underlying assumption there is that we are wrong or at best are our enemies are our moral equivalents.

My response is "No, but it's a lot better for everyone if Right has Might and is willing to use it."

No, it's not better for those we unintentionally kill. And it's not better for those who were sucked in to fighting for the forces of evil unwillingly. But it's better for everyone else on the whole, especially for people who haven't been born yet.

The "Right" is often accused of seeing the world in black and white, because the Right is willing to work through the arguments pro and con and make a decision. Questioning one's motives is always good, but in the end that question needs an answer and you make a decision dispite the arguments against, because the arguments for are more persuasive in the end. Deciciveness is seen as simplistic, when in fact the arguments may very well have already been painfully waded through.