Don’t Tread on Me

I will ignore the presidential drivel from last night, and write about something positive, instead.

“If I’m elected to serve as commander-in-chief we won’t cower in the face of evil,” says presidential candidate Ted Cruz, in a new political commercial. “America will lead. We’ll rebuild our military. We’ll kill the terrorists. And every Islamic militant will know, if you wage jihad against us you’re signing your death warrant.”

Good for Cruz. I will certainly vote for that.

Cruz is a deeply evangelical Christian. How he squares this attitude with the Christian teachings of “love your enemy,” or “turn the other cheek,” is outside of my understanding. What I do know is that contradictions, within an individual mind or within a society, are not sustainable. Sooner or later, something has to give way. Perhaps when Ted Cruz is confronted with unabashed and uncompromising evil, he simply goes the right way.

Killing terrorists is the right thing to do. If the standard of morality is survival, then self-preservation is a necessary condition. If your standard of morality is something other than survival, then I suppose you have no worries about perishing at the hands of terrorists.

Islam, more than any ideology on the scene, is a religion of obedience and submission.

The opposite of obedience and submission are liberty, freedom, self-responsibility, and reason. None of these values are possible or relevant without first ensuring survival.

The president of Liberty University, a leading evangelical Christian college in Virginia, urged students to apply for concealed-weapons permits and said that if more people did so, then “we could end those Muslims.”

The remarks on Friday came when the university president, Jerry Falwell Jr., took the stage at the college’s convocation, a mandatory event, after a speech by former Senator Jim DeMint.

Addressing both the gun-control debate and the attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14 people on Wednesday, Mr. Falwell suggested that the victims might have defended themselves if they had been armed.

“If some of those people in that community center had what I’ve got in my back pocket right now…” he said, trailing off amid applause and cheers from the audience. He then said, apparently joking: “Is it illegal to pull it out? I don’t know.”

Mr. Falwell urged the students to apply for concealed-carry permits and criticized President Obama, saying it “blows my mind” that the president has argued for tighter gun-control laws in response to mass shootings.

“I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed us,” he said, to more applause. “Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”

Liberty University is an evangelical Christian school. Once again, how Mr. Falwell squares his Christian views with what he’s telling students is beyond me.

However, he’s absolutely right about self-protection and self-defense.

We should be telling young people to take up arms and defend themselves. Like it or not, Islamic terrorists are storming office spaces, private concerts, skyscrapers, commercial airliners and everything they can possibly destroy. They are not going to stop. Disarming ourselves will not make the problem go away. In fact, it will only worsen it, because even the best FBI, police force, military and CIA cannot protect us from everything. At some point, we have to accept responsibility for ourselves.

It does not matter if only 1 percent of Muslims are violent. (I have a hunch that’s a low estimate). That’s still a lot. You have to be prepared to fight for what’s right. Nothing is more right than your own life. No right is more precious than the right to live, and the right to enjoy liberty, to live life for your own sake.

Your life belongs to you—and nobody else. If you believe in a God, or something of that kind, it’s your own decision. You have no right to impose this belief on others by force.

When it comes to Christianity, Judaism, New Age, agnosticism or atheism, in America we tend to accept the principle of church and state separation. When it comes to Islam, our loathsome president and his awful subordinates tell us we must promptly get over it.

Nobody has a right to initiate force or harm against another. Whether you’re religious or not, you will surely agree, if you’re rational.

Yet nobody has a right to threaten or take your life, either. We can’t let political correctness, or some bizarre sense of sadism-masochism on the part of the people currently in charge of our government, distract us from this basic fact.

“Kill the terrorists” and “defend yourself” are good, life-loving and rational messages. I hope to hear more of them. Even if they come from quarters where I sometimes significantly disagree, it still doesn’t change the fact that they’re right on this very basic point.

We have a miserable, truly wretched man in the Oval Office. He wants us to lay down our arms, literally as well as figuratively, and submit to those who would destroy us. He won’t admit it, but that’s precisely what he’s asking and demanding.

It’s sick, it’s wrong, it’s un-American and it’s almost beyond the ability to comprehend that half of our country seems to buy it.

Don’t fall for it. Not if life is your standard of value. And if life is not your standard of value, please get out of the way. Allow those of us who want to go on living in reason and liberty to do so. We’re willing to do whatever it takes to defeat militant Islam, even if you are not.

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