First published HERE
Last August marked the 80th anniversary of the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War. As Americans, we can be rightly proud of our successful defense against the grave threats to humanity presented by the Axis powers. We do well to remember the bravery and sacrifices of all those soldiers and civilians who fought for a cause that was certainly just. So many died. The survivors went on to become that “greatest generation” that faced down the threat of communism in the Cold War while building a nation of unprecedented prosperity.
However, last month also marked the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States was the first and hopefully the last nation to use nuclear weapons in war. That we did so is still, after all these years, a reason for much soul searching. While our cause was just, and perhaps these bombings brought the war to a quicker conclusion, the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on these two cities violated basic moral norms: namely, good ends do not justify evil means.
As Vatican II taught, «Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation» (Gaudium et Spes 60). The Japanese bombing of Chinese cities in the 1930s, the German terror attacks on London and Coventry, as well as the Allies’ firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo, like the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Taken together, they all were products of a “total war mentality” and represented an abandonment of our Christian tradition, which insists that a just war must be limited in both its ends and its means. That our adversaries did not abide by these same principles did not free us from the responsibility to do so ourselves.
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El reconocimiento de que el mundo se hunde en sus contradicciones puede ser visto, con frecuencia, como una aceptación del fracaso que impide tratar los problemas de manera efectiva. Por ejemplo, los conflictos, el deterioro social, o la degradación del medioambiente son problemas del mundo que son enfrentados de forma incoherente hasta provocar acciones contradictorias y, por ende, son difíciles de resolver y acaban en un deplorable estancamiento; lo cual puede resultar en un declive generalizado de la civilización moderna.
No es que Colombia carezca de lideres. El problema es identificar quien de entre ellos reúne todos los requisitos para salvar a un país secuestrado por la corrupción y la narcoguerrilla. Un líder que, como en su momento Álvaro Uribe Vélez, asuma la responsabilidad con valentía y entereza. Alguien que haga lo que hay que hacer para tomar control de una nación que padece de politiculitis aguda.
In my view, what really holds a society together isn’t the laws enacted by legislatures or dictators, but peer pressure, social opprobrium, and moral approbation. Generally, society is fairly self-regulating. It’s why people pay their bills at restaurants even though there’s not a cop at the door. Criminals are the exception, not the rule—although, it must be said, they naturally gravitate towards the government.
The basis of the fight that for decades the people subjected by 21st Century Socialism have fought is to separate crime from politics so that organized crime stops protecting itself in the sovereignty, representation, and immunities that are bestowed to Heads of State and democratic representatives. As a milestone for freedom, the United States has just identified Venezuela as a “country kidnapped by a criminal band” increasing the bounty for the capture of Nicolas Maduro to 50 million Dollars.