By Ben Stein on 8.18.05 @ 1:42AM
There is one great man standing between us and capitulation to evil.
A few humble theses:
There is such a thing as evil in this world and such a thing as
good. It is simply not true that all is relative and similar.
Beheading Iraqi civilians with a saw on the Internet is absolutely
evil. Helping children in Mosul get pure water is absolute good.
Sending homicide bombers to blow up elementary schools at a kibbutz
is evil. Treating the children of your enemies in the finest
hospitals in Israel is good.
In Europe and Asia and South America and in much of North
America, this idea is unknown. All is relative and the only point
is to get away another day without having the evil ones attack you.
Appeasing the terrorists, ignoring them and their instigators,
pretending that the good guys are the bad guys -- all of these are
now standard practice in the capitals of the world, and in the
academies of America and in the Democratic Party at high
levels.
There is one great man standing between us and this capitulation
to evil: that man is George Bush, and he has two great allies, Tony
Blair and John Howard. If we did not have George Bush at the helm,
if we had a moral relativist like Kerry or Gore, we would even now
be playing the same appeasing games as Chamberlain played with
Hitler, and which France and Germany, Spain and Italy, Norway and
Belgium, tragically, even Canada, play with the enemies of the
human spirit.
By a great providence, we were sent George Bush. In his mind,
there is such a thing as evil. Terrorism is evil. Racism is evil.
The murder of unborn babies is evil. Torturing a totally innocent
Terri Schiavo to death is evil. He sees it, acts on it, actively
works not just to get along day by day, but to keep evil at bay and
to overcome it where it can be overcome. As time goes by, I come to
realize that George Bush, with all of his faults, is the spiritual
heir to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Winston
Churchill, to the late Pope John Paul II. How unbelievably lucky we
are to have him, and how grateful we should be.
The terrifying part is that he will be gone from power in less
than three years. Then what? The evil will remain in men's souls,
and who will be there to fight it? We have to start thinking right
now of who sees and recognizes the difference between good and evil
and start energizing ourselves to make that man or woman President.
George Bush's shoes will be terrifyingly difficult to fill.
topics:
Iraq, Israel
