Tuesday.....International.....Nuclear Weapons and Autism

The flood continues from the worst rains ever pummeling the flame of liberty in the United States of America. The latest is our announcement that we (the United States) will not use nuclear weapons in response to biological, chemical or conventional weapons attacks on us. The caveat, as reported in a BBC news story, is that the offender must be complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Additionally, this new policy does not include Iran or North Korea. The absurdity of the announcement is twofold: Any government is now free to look the other way or even covertly subsidize terrorist groups to operate within their borders for the purpose of planning and launching attacks on our country. We are now bound to endless Congressional hearings seeking absolute proof, beyond mitigating circumstances, before responding in kind and by that time our animus towards the attack would have been assuaged just as the horror of 9/11 has dissipated into the narcissistic never-neverland of postmodern America. We would be forced into building armies through conscription for even the unlikely event that public opinion would, led on by the media, wholeheartedly sanction retribution of any sort. Our eventual response would most likely be severe self-recrimination on why we brought this upon ourselves. We are essentially apologizing to our enemies and those who hold no admiration for the nation that secured their present status. The second absurdity in this announcement and the philosophy that it emanated from is that we are saying to every enemy around the world that our one and only goal is to do anything and everything within our power to stay out of their way as they seek to dominate their people and any other people whose domination would satisfy their goals. We are encouraging them to cause havoc wherever they wish and do so without concern for the response of the United States of America.

I want to make a radical departure here from the topic of this blog. I left the computer for 30 minutes to see Joni Earickson Tada's television program Joni and Friends. The topic this week was autism and it featured families of children with autism and a church that seeks to be such a part of the Body of Christ that it reached out to these children and their families. As every single program of Joni's, it was moving to an almost incapacitating degree. The departure in the blog is this; how do we deal with our responsibility to show Christian love in everyday life and also deal with matters of governments, war, peace, liberty and freedom? Indeed, this question is related to the purpose of this blog. After years of debating this issue in my own mind, I came to my own conclusion that the two are separated but also one. To whatever degree we live the Christian life, we do so with a complete liberty. As a nation, we reach out into the world in many ways, securing peace, giving economic help, providing agricultural education, medical help and on and on. The Christian love that we once again to whatever degree, work towards, is done free of a life of serfdom, concentration camps even slavery. If we choose to ignore our responsibility to defend this life that permits us the opportunity to help others, we must, logically speaking, admit that we accept and enjoy the privileges at the expense of the sacrifices of others! We put ourselves on a pedestal and give ourselves a higher position than those who meet this challenge and who may fail often but never give up. It is not Christian love to watch as others are exploited, enslaved and murdered. Does not the Body of Christ include those who stand watch at the door? There need not be a conflict in lovingly holding a child with autism while wiping away their tears or praying encouragement with the parent and elsewhere, another time-another place, seeking their safety and security in a world that does not discriminate in its violence.