On Keeping the Peace

If you will bear with me, I want to consider a more serious topic this week.

            Consider the following fictional example. Apply it then to the WORLD situations.

            We live in a peaceful town.  However, down the street lives a rough, undisciplined bunch. The kids steal, bully, and destroy, and their parents let them. They happen to be Polish.

            The kids have decided that they want what we have. They stealthily creep up to our door.

            They say, “We’ve come to take your things, your style of living, your land, and we are entitled to it.”

            “Don’t you know you can’t come in here?”

we remark. “This is our house.”

            However, they push us aside and come in anyway. We are dumbfounded and frightened; we back off against the wall. We have had no strategy for such a flagrant act, you see.

            We call the police, and they say, “We will do something about it.” But they do nothing.

Next, the hooligans begin to carry out our furniture, and then move on to our family pictures, our family momentos (traditions) and keepsakes. They even pick up our Bibles and trample them to the floor..kicking and destroying them. Our heritage and tradition are being carried away and defamed.

            We watch, unbelieving and dumbfounded. We say to ourselves, “Surely someone will stop this.” (I guess we need to take an action. But we don’t know what to do.)

            Our town leader tries to encourage us with this remark. “We don’t have a plan, but we hope to have one soon.”

            Gosh, that doesn’t stop them!

            But we have been told that they are needy, and have every right to come in and take. After all, we have so much. We have no choice. And on top of that, we are told that we are prejudiced against Polish people if we don’t let them in.

            Now let’s consider another example.

            “Down the road” a bit,  there lives several families with weapons who are traveling in packs to another city where they begin to take the neighbors’ homes and property. They are also killing entire families. We watch. Well, after all, those families can take care of themselves, can’t they? Sure they can. Oh, we know. They don’t have any weapons to fight back, but after all, it’s not our business. Besides, if we get involved, we will get hurt. Some of us might die.

            What “ought” to be our attitude, we are told?

            “We are all good people underneath. No one wants to hurt any one. We can all be friends. Just let them have what they want and soon they will stop and not continue to do all these aggressive, nasty things. Let’s all be understanding and tolerant, ok? Oh, and let’s be friends.”

            Sooner or later, more rogues join up with the skirmish for plunder, and more lives are endangered. Eventually, we realize that OUR house and town may be next..

            And we ask, “What can we do? How can we stop this kind of bloodshed and piracy?”

            The answer is simple, but not our favorite choice.

One has to draw a line of blood in the sand.

Passivity and ambivalence never works. “Down the road” may not be in our town, but eventually, if we ignore the situation, we will certainly have our turn. Soon, those very determined ones causing trouble will soon be at our doorstep too. They smell success and nothing builds an army faster than knowing that there will be no resistance to their acts.

            How do we prevent such aggression and determine peace and security?

            Charles Krauthammer said it well in the Sunday Hutchinson news... Deterrance.

            Instant response to such aggressive actions PREVENTS even a bigger problem down the road.

            If some one comes to our front door to bust in and say that they can come whenever they wish, sneak in, climb up on the roof and slide down the chimney, dig tunnels under the house…I hope we have the sense to stop them immediately.

            Or if our neighboring towns are having problems with marauders, I hope we show muscle and all join in to march to the aid of our friends. Such action may cause loss of life, but it preserves life as well and establishes a line of demarcation. “Don’t continue any further”, it says.

            This kind of deterrance

 is what keeps peace and prevents future problems. It’s too bad to have to conduct our affairs this way. But, it’s the only way to deal with bullies, and forceful, aggression.  A people always need to be vigilant and have a plan. We cannot slip and slide, as Fats Domino once sang…We cannot peep and hide!