While browsing over at the Voodoo Lounge I joined in a small debate going back and forth at one of dr. dna's posts. It got me thinking of some things that sometimes surface for me. The anti-war crowd and the leftists engage us in arguement over the moral rightness of Iraq, and before that Afghanistan, ultimately ending up at 9/11. As if this was all just some petty missunderstanding that a good handshake could solve. Intelligent people know better.

The picture is of the county courthouse in my hometown. The granite slab in front is the Ten Comandments, untouched yet by the "tolerant" left. But this isn't about religion, it is however about faith. Faith in a good people, faith in a just cause, faith in our ability to find the right path for both ourselves and the people who's lives we affect with our power. It's not a blind faith, far from it, it's a comfortable belief that though we may stumble sometimes we are a force for good in the world. A force for change to people and cultures that may hate us, may loath us, but without us would be mired in the sixth century till the end of time. It's a battle not just of good and evil, it's also a fight between the worst of human history and the hope of a better future.

It's a small thing, freedom, we wear it like an old jacket. So familar that we sometimes don't think what the original cost was. The cold war was over, the end of history, or so we were told. No big fights left, the other side had just gone home. It was cool here that day, My wife was seven months pregnant with our son, and was away that morning. I was there at home watching our little girl, and had opened the browser to yahoo, when I first learned of it. I turned on the TV and sat though the worst day I can remember, watching all those poor people die, and holding my daughter as if she were the last sane thing left in the world. Our daughter and son are both beautiful and healthy now, and I want this over before they are old enough to feel what it is. Before they face a choice like I did in my almost forgotten past. My wife understands, she knows me far better than anyone. But my blood runs like fire, for justice and for an end. I can't fight anymore, nature has stripped me of the choice. But I can lend my voice, give comfort where I can, give my heart to those that need encouragement. I won't quit, won't give in, won't allow others to surrender in my families name. No, this is too important to be left to the voices of doubt and fear. Too important to let what if's cause us to pull back. We've already seen the cost of holding back.

For many of us this is the greatest conflict man is likely to see for a very long time. We have men of courage, women of valor to fight for us, and we pray for their safety. Long for a time when they can come home. Because that's the goal, the most important one missed by our most vocal critics. We want to be left alone, free to pursue our lives at home, and abroad without the constant fear that some lunatic will quest for his 72 fresh ones today. We want the murdering thugs to simply die quickly if we can arrange it, slowly if nescessary. We want a real peace, one free of death and fire. Not the quota peace where a few thousand here and there is just too bad, and we al just need to get along. That's the peace Stalin offered, Hitler, Mao, and Saddam. Just bleed them, they won't fight back, drive them home, where we'll still attack them, kill them and they'll just take it. If they had studied our history a bit, they would maybe have known better.

I end up coming full circle now back to that old courthouse. It's a pretty place, almost serene in it's common place sameness with the many thousands of other quiet peacefull places in the US and the world at large. It stands in place of the first courthouse destroyed by fire in 1875, we rebuilt then, and we are still rebuilding. New York will have a hollowed shrine, but it belongs to all of us now. Our humble granite building isn't anything special in the bigger picture, but it says much. We are survivers, builders and we stand without breaking. We will win, because we can't do anything else, can't be anything but what we are. We offer the world a place like this of their own, free of fear, free of slavery to someone elses version of paradise. We offer, and in the end they will come to us. When we part to come home, we won't need worry that they will return. We need only to finish what was started for us.

Heritage, we have the quiet strength from our past, we remember our dead and those who risk everything, and begin to build again.