Tag Archive for war

War Is Hell

July 22, 2016 Moral Action, Security No comments

In 1622 Powhatan Indians killed 347 men, women, and children at Jamestown, nearly 1/3 of the entire colony. Fifteen years later at the Mystic River, English colonists and their Indian allies trapped an entire village of 600 Pequots inside their fortified wooden houses. The structures were set afire and the inhabitants burned alive. The few who escaped the flames were put to the sword. With each new wave of military technology, the scale of killing in war continually inundates the sensibilities of the past. Before the American Civil War, infantry fought at close range with muskets, one bullet at a

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Have We Become “Sin Eaters”?
or Catholic Answers on The Bomb

June 6, 2016 Moral Action, Security 2 comments

As a group, we’ve discussed more than once the morality of dropping The Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. I don’t know that we’ve ever reached consensus on the topic. In our deliberations, I have tended to speak less and listen more, since most of you are better read in both history and moral theology than I am — but I tend to think that dropping the bomb was a bad idea. Some might call it a “necessary evil,” but my basic understanding of Catholic morality suggests to me that there is no such

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Euromaidan vs Eurasianism

February 20, 2015 General Interest One comment

As the Ukraine marks the one year anniversary of the pro-Europe protests which ousted then president and Kremlin-ally Viktor Yanukovych they will commemorate the ‘Heavenly Hundred’ – the men and women who lost their lives in “Euromaidan.” Named for the Maidan, Kiev’s main square, where more than 50 people were shot and the bulk of the protests took place. The total killed during police clashes is estimated between 110 and 123. As a result Ukraine elected a pro-European government and president, Petro Poroshenko and made constitutional changes. Unfortunately, this did not solve the country’s problems but lead to confrontation with

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Junto Pep Talk: Moscow, Where the Shadows Lie

March 25, 2014 Security No comments

This is kind of a cheap post, in that I have very little insight to offer, other than I read these to articles back to back and was struck by the idea that, as Legolas put it in the film version of the Lord of the Rings: “Something stirs in the East…a sleepless malice.” From the New York Times: 3 Presidents and a Riddle Named Putin From The Imaginative Conservative: Stand, Men of the West! I especially liked the Eliot quote and the paragraph that follows it. Hope you enjoy it, too.

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The Fire of Samuel Adams

July 3, 2013 Intellectual Formation, Security One comment

Men of the Junto: I shared a quote from American revolutionary Samuel Adams with you at our last gathering, as best I could remember it. I googled it this afternoon, and found a somewhat longer version than I spoke: It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. Wikiquote says this is misattributed to Samuel Adams, and also to John Adams, with little evidence for either — so I thought I’d look for other relevant sentiments among the man’s verified quotations. Here are

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Only Atheists in Foxholes?

May 9, 2013 Security One comment

A friend of mine — a Navy veteran — posted this Breitbart article on Facebook last week, alleging that the Pentagon may court martial soldiers, including military chaplains, who share or promote their faith. As is typical in a case like this, the conservative news sources find the most egregious examples of religious crack-downs (an officer being asked to remove a Bible from his desk) and cite them as the new SOP. Meanwhile, more sympathetic, liberal news sources share examples of their own (a soldier asked to remove an atheist bumper sticker from their car) and insist this is only

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