When posting my blogpost recently upon the one-time Sissii International '*child'-bride seeking re-entry to the United Kingdom...little did I know or imagine that God's Own would shortly thereafter be facing/confronting its own version of the aforesaid...
...but truth, as they say, is ever stranger than fiction...
So let me pose the question: which trumps the other...fulfilling every last jot and tittle of the strictest letter of the law, or transgressing this where absolutely necessary in order to achieve a far greater good - i.e. safeguarding the wellbeing of the citizenry whose essential interests you have been sacredly charged with preserving and ensuring?
It's certainly a thing worth considering in this context, as **they say that the fundamental duty and responsibility of any legitimate government...when it is all boiled down...is to give its citizens proper protection and security (and thus the critical role of the police and armed forces in any civilized land).
So then, just what exactly does any self-respecting government (truly worth its weight) do (in such circumstances)? I.e. 'let 'im back' (***as much/most Western law requires) or revoke their (his or her) citizenship?
*Though methinks it a little inconsistent and quite frankly disingenuous that the very same sorts of people (some tend to label as extremely naive do-gooders) invariably use that term beseeching innate (childhood) 'rights' for such youth in the one breath, and then in the very next claim every conceivable adult privilege for the selfsame adolescents...
...like all true dreamers (and ivory castle builders), ever wanting ****'to have their cake and eat it too'...
**Especially libertarian types, for whom I have much understanding and respect, and considerable ideological fellow-feeling...
***As per some international treaty on repatriation and the non-revokable right of citizenship.
****A lifelong motto I've ever been attached to, seeing as 'it takes one to know one'...and coming to me as it did from a great 'ole British gentleman who almost remarried my Mum after my Dad left her...
Part Two: (The Day After!) Tomorrow: My Own (not altogether surprising) Verdict Thereabouts...('coz unless I get some early shuteye during our ongoing summer heatwave - from either heaven or hell, depending upon one's perspective - I reckon I'm gonna go even crazier than some might presently regard me...and as Smeagol-Gollum might put matters, "[That] ain't a decent [prospect]!")
And yes, four days (rather than just one or two) on...
Now it simply won't do/suffice to protest/pretend - way after the fact - that one really didn't mean anything by one's actions...that one didn't actually understand quite what one was getting in to...when signing up to an outfit which has sent shivers down the spines of most ordinary folk (in media-saturated lands) across the globe (over the past half dozen or so years)...
hey, it's way to late for that kinda 'benefit of hindsight' sort of thing...
No, a much more pertinent 'thing' - that the rest of us are well entitled - to ask you, is
what the hell did you even think you were getting involved in (in the first place)...moving halfway around the world to a civil-war-wracked nation daily imploding ever further whilst seeing literally millions of refugees spilling out of its shores across the Middle East and Europe thus creating by far the worst refugee crisis to wrack our world since WW11? And please, oh please, whatever else you do, don't tell us - your erstwhile fellow countrymen and women (and kids) - that you weren't aware of, let alone personally involved with, the barbarities being daily, even hourly perpetrated by the sort of company you'd thus chosen to keep...
Sorry, it simply won't wash...for one solitary split-second even... What d'ya take us all for? And what particular shower did you come down with? No, I mean, really?
Sure, if one is kidnapped or otherwise 'taken' against one's will and forced to participate (i.e. against one's will) in savagery and barbarous acts...one then can claim some sort of 'out', so the theory goes. But sorry, even then I simply don't buy it - I just can't buy that kind of 'reasoning'...
For the selfsame 'argument' is ever used in regular cases of kidnapping and extortion and the like. You mean you're trying to tell me that if a gun was pointed at your head - either literally or 'just' metaphorically - and you were told that if you refused to follow orders your own kith and kin, your beloved parents and/or spouse, your children or close relatives or 'bosom buddies' would be simply blown to smithereens...then you'd do as you were told?
Hey, in that case you're even worse than a butcher...you're a moral coward and traitor to all those you should hold dear...and have no deep-laden, undying loyalty to them when push comes to shove.
Just as people in Nazi Germany and other Axis-sympathizing nations throughout wartime Europe either chose - at the cost of their very lives - to stand true to their persecuted Jewish relatives, friends and neighbours...or - ultimately - didn't...
No, no matter how difficult and unpleasant the choice may be, one always has a choice in times of trouble. No-one can be 'forced' to do anything...for one ever and always has the possibility to refuse ...and yes, if it eventually and ultimately comes down to it, one can even die rather than do wrong, or, far more nobly still, can give one's life to save the life or lives of those one truly loves...
And as the legendary Christian singer Keith Green once put it...I know Someone just like that...and He's your best friend, He really is...
...and unlike the afore-alluded to false friend or betrayer of sacred trusts - or lackey in a devilish drama of our times - when He sees the wolf coming (for His flock) He doesn't abandon them & flee for dear life...but stays and defends them, if necessary to the bitter end...even giving His own life if need be to save the sheep...
And as that selfsame Good Book puts it so well, greater love than that has no (mortal) man...
...but truth, as they say, is ever stranger than fiction...
So let me pose the question: which trumps the other...fulfilling every last jot and tittle of the strictest letter of the law, or transgressing this where absolutely necessary in order to achieve a far greater good - i.e. safeguarding the wellbeing of the citizenry whose essential interests you have been sacredly charged with preserving and ensuring?
It's certainly a thing worth considering in this context, as **they say that the fundamental duty and responsibility of any legitimate government...when it is all boiled down...is to give its citizens proper protection and security (and thus the critical role of the police and armed forces in any civilized land).
So then, just what exactly does any self-respecting government (truly worth its weight) do (in such circumstances)? I.e. 'let 'im back' (***as much/most Western law requires) or revoke their (his or her) citizenship?
*Though methinks it a little inconsistent and quite frankly disingenuous that the very same sorts of people (some tend to label as extremely naive do-gooders) invariably use that term beseeching innate (childhood) 'rights' for such youth in the one breath, and then in the very next claim every conceivable adult privilege for the selfsame adolescents...
...like all true dreamers (and ivory castle builders), ever wanting ****'to have their cake and eat it too'...
**Especially libertarian types, for whom I have much understanding and respect, and considerable ideological fellow-feeling...
***As per some international treaty on repatriation and the non-revokable right of citizenship.
****A lifelong motto I've ever been attached to, seeing as 'it takes one to know one'...and coming to me as it did from a great 'ole British gentleman who almost remarried my Mum after my Dad left her...
Part Two: (The Day After!) Tomorrow: My Own (not altogether surprising) Verdict Thereabouts...('coz unless I get some early shuteye during our ongoing summer heatwave - from either heaven or hell, depending upon one's perspective - I reckon I'm gonna go even crazier than some might presently regard me...and as Smeagol-Gollum might put matters, "[That] ain't a decent [prospect]!")
And yes, four days (rather than just one or two) on...
Now it simply won't do/suffice to protest/pretend - way after the fact - that one really didn't mean anything by one's actions...that one didn't actually understand quite what one was getting in to...when signing up to an outfit which has sent shivers down the spines of most ordinary folk (in media-saturated lands) across the globe (over the past half dozen or so years)...
hey, it's way to late for that kinda 'benefit of hindsight' sort of thing...
No, a much more pertinent 'thing' - that the rest of us are well entitled - to ask you, is
what the hell did you even think you were getting involved in (in the first place)...moving halfway around the world to a civil-war-wracked nation daily imploding ever further whilst seeing literally millions of refugees spilling out of its shores across the Middle East and Europe thus creating by far the worst refugee crisis to wrack our world since WW11? And please, oh please, whatever else you do, don't tell us - your erstwhile fellow countrymen and women (and kids) - that you weren't aware of, let alone personally involved with, the barbarities being daily, even hourly perpetrated by the sort of company you'd thus chosen to keep...
Sorry, it simply won't wash...for one solitary split-second even... What d'ya take us all for? And what particular shower did you come down with? No, I mean, really?
Sure, if one is kidnapped or otherwise 'taken' against one's will and forced to participate (i.e. against one's will) in savagery and barbarous acts...one then can claim some sort of 'out', so the theory goes. But sorry, even then I simply don't buy it - I just can't buy that kind of 'reasoning'...
For the selfsame 'argument' is ever used in regular cases of kidnapping and extortion and the like. You mean you're trying to tell me that if a gun was pointed at your head - either literally or 'just' metaphorically - and you were told that if you refused to follow orders your own kith and kin, your beloved parents and/or spouse, your children or close relatives or 'bosom buddies' would be simply blown to smithereens...then you'd do as you were told?
Hey, in that case you're even worse than a butcher...you're a moral coward and traitor to all those you should hold dear...and have no deep-laden, undying loyalty to them when push comes to shove.
Just as people in Nazi Germany and other Axis-sympathizing nations throughout wartime Europe either chose - at the cost of their very lives - to stand true to their persecuted Jewish relatives, friends and neighbours...or - ultimately - didn't...
No, no matter how difficult and unpleasant the choice may be, one always has a choice in times of trouble. No-one can be 'forced' to do anything...for one ever and always has the possibility to refuse ...and yes, if it eventually and ultimately comes down to it, one can even die rather than do wrong, or, far more nobly still, can give one's life to save the life or lives of those one truly loves...
And as the legendary Christian singer Keith Green once put it...I know Someone just like that...and He's your best friend, He really is...
...and unlike the afore-alluded to false friend or betrayer of sacred trusts - or lackey in a devilish drama of our times - when He sees the wolf coming (for His flock) He doesn't abandon them & flee for dear life...but stays and defends them, if necessary to the bitter end...even giving His own life if need be to save the sheep...
And as that selfsame Good Book puts it so well, greater love than that has no (mortal) man...
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