Reasons to be cheerful

On the other hand…

I’m indebted once again to Cherry Pie ; this time for drawing my attention to this, the National Cold War Museum.

No more Soviet Union.

Admittedly, Russia’s still a lousy place and a terrible neighbour, but still and all, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Lech Walesa, John Paul the Second, all stood up to the evil of it, to the power of it, and ignored all the practical, and good, and decent, and peace-loving people of the Peace Movement, and said ‘No more.’

And there is no more Soviet Union.

No more Four minute Warning.

No more Iron Curtain.

No more Gulag, (but watch this space.)

No more Berlin Wall.

No more cult of Personality (in Europe.)

No more Stasi.
Fewer (but still some) millions living in state-sponsored poverty and ignorance.

And no nuclear winter, as promised by the ‘peace movement’ should the free world re-arm.

No massive war. No mushroom clouds. No plagues or famine or radiation sickness.

The spirit of the Iron Curtain and all it stood for lives on.

Look at this Wikipedia entry with its impersonal voice; its lack of moral agency; its innuendo against the West as to the origins of the term ‘Iron Curtain’; and the absence of detail as to who built it and why and who shot who. look who it blames for it being built.

You’ll see that Communism alive and well on the Internet.

So we still have more communism to fight.

So what lessons should we learn from this?

Love our own country and ways of life and never fear to describe the hellholes our enemies have made of their homelands.

Thanks to James for his Easter post that made me articulate this:

But I'm jolly glad to have been brought up in a culture and a country that have been made gentle and decent - eventually - by the Christian faith.

I can't say this often enough, but if you grow up in a place where for hundreds of years you hear a god's words saying; blessed are the meek, the poor, the peacemakers, then you are much more likely to get a political set-up wherein the meek, the poor, and the peaceful are valued and looked after.

And so here we are; bloody but not yet wholly reverted to savages; clumsy and inefficient experiments like the NHS and welfare benefits trying to heal the sick and protect the poor as we were bid to do.
Merciful and hungering after justice too - oh yes - maybe a little too much emphasis on the mercy in foreign policy, but that's just my way...

I have no doubt that the supernatural Jesus (the Risen Christ) has inspired a religion inviting and powerful enough to survive for two thousand years has led to great good and great wisdom, as well as being used as a pretext for cruelty and conquest.

But for me the thing that makes the faith such a benefit to mankind is those people and those virtues that the living and uncrucified Jesus of Nazareth told us were blessed.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

There, right there.
That's the world I want to live in.

Stand up to totalitarianism.

Understand the enemy.

Ignore the peace movement and the practical and the international agreement ‘experts’.

Re-arm.

Face them down, at home and abroad.

Tell them ‘no.’

What have we got to lose?

Home.