Obama and Democrats Don’t Understand ‘Sacrifice’
November 10, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, GOP, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Islam, Islamofascism, Liberals, Military, President, Republicans, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Terrorism, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
The jihadi movement has never made any bones about the fact that it intends to destroy western civilization from within using the West’s own principles as weapons against it. This is why, for instance, that radical Islamists have been angling to institute Sharia “law” inside England and Canada and to a lesser extent in the U.S.A. But this effort isn’t even necessary when, in the U.S. for instance, a large part of the political class cannot even agree upon what the word “sacrifice” means for its own, much less find themselves able to define the terms of enemies to their civilization. What does terrorism, Sharia, or radicalism mean when Democrats cannot even properly understand what “sacrifice” means in the context of what happened at Fort Hood, Texas?
On November 7, it was reported by the New York Daily News that President Obama shamefully exploited the murderous Hasan’s crime in Texas in an effort to flog his healthcare bill in Congress.
According to the Daily News President Obama “invoked the Fort Hood shootings in an emotional appeal to Democrats to pass health care reform.” The Daily News followed this statement up with a quote from New Jersey Democrat Rob Andrews.
“He was absolutely inspiring. In a very moving way, he reminded us what sacrifice really is,” said New Jersey Rep. Rob Andrews, estimating the persuader-in-chief turned several votes.
“Sacrifice is not casting a vote that might lose an election for you; it is the sacrifice that someone makes when they wear the uniform of this country and that unfortunately a number of people made this week,” said Andrews.
This is an astonishing disconnect with reality, an execrable failure to understand even simple definitions. These soldiers murdered by Hasan didn’t “sacrifice” their lives for their country in this incident. Those that were killed didn’t get a chance to “sacrifice” their lives as they died. They were cruelly and criminally gunned down without being given the opportunity to make a conscious choice at the moment of their demise. Yes, their lives have been sacrificed, taken away in colloquial terms, but these soldiers were not in a place where they might have expected a life or death situation. They were purportedly safely at home in the care of doctors and nurses charged with ensuring the health of our uniformed personnel.
In the same way, we cannot say that those nearly 3,000 that lost their lives on 9/11/01 sacrificed their lives for their country or civilization. A sacrifice is an offering and these people had no notion on their way to work that fateful morning that they’d soon be in a situation where they might be killed by radical Islamists. In truth a sacrifice requires a surrender of something for the sake of something else. This all implies a conscious offering not a sudden extraction of a thing (such as a life taken by criminal actions). Neither the victims of 9/11 nor the soldiers innocently going about their lives at Fort Hood were offered the chance to make that sacrificial bargain.
Both were craven criminal acts. Acts of terrorism. It was not “sacrifice.” It was murder. And it was motivated by a hateful, radical religious tenet that holds such cowardly acts as a means to an end.
Worse, what we have here is a clueless Democrat and his president using this senseless act of terror as cover to get a healthcare bill passed. Obama is using these murders as fodder to push a mere legislative effort. It is stunningly disgusting.
But, it does illuminate why Democrats in general and Obama in particular simply have no logical basis by which to understand the real sacrifice that our soldiers choose to make when they enter national service and subsequently perform their duties in all branches of the military. Democrats don’t even understand the most basic premise of what sacrifice means so it is no wonder that Rep. Andrews was so surprised that Obama might mention that sacrifice isn’t just making a “hard” vote in Congress. Andrews was stunned with a definition of sacrifice that seemed not to have occurred to him.
And therein lies a major problem between the left and the right. Simple definitions cannot even be agreed upon at this point. If even so simple a thing as the definition of the word sacrifice cannot be agreed upon, we are at loggerheads to define our civilization.
____________
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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