Wednesday History Note: Winston Churchill

“In barbarous times superior martial virtues–physical strength, course, skill, discipline–were required to secure a supremacy; and in the hard evolution of mankind, the best and fittest stocks came to the fore.  But no such saving guarantee exists today.  There is no reason why a base, degenerate, immoral race should not make an enemy far above them in quality the prostrate subject of their caprice or tyranny, simply because they happened to be possessed at a given moment of some new death-dealing or terror-working process and were ruthless in its employment.  The liberties of man are no longer to be guarded by their natural qualities, but by their dodges; and superior virtue and valor may fall an easy prey to the latest diabolical trick.”

 

This very challenging quote by Churchill would, I believe, apply not only to the current world challenges posed by ISIS but also to the internal tensions found here in the USA.  It will now take some very special stuff for humans of virtue and valor to stand in these days.