Looping the Hen

If I may expand (poorly) on Bill's essay, we can apply the paradigm to other countries fairly readily. Where his focus was more inward, on our country and the contrasts between some peoples' actions on 9/11 in NYC and in the wake of Katrina in New Orleans. Some countries, such as Afghanistan and Iraq 5 years ago, (and Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan today, etc) had no sheepdogs, no heroes, no one to look to for protection, only wolves in sheepdog clothing.

The next time someone berates me because I support our country's promoting of freedom, I might simply say "The Iraqis and Afghanis had no sheepdogs and too many wolves, we had to go." By the same token, there are countries (France and Germany come to mind, as well as the leadership of the UN) that are almost completely clueless as to the necessity of a bite to go with a bark. Sometimes the way of the sheepdog really is the only effective way.

Iraq and Afghanistan had millions of people with the capacity to be sheepdogs, but the wolves were too many and would regularly take down the sheepdogs (with wood chippers, beheadings, mass graves) before they had a chance to do any damage. Today and every day in Iraq and Afghanistan now, thousands of citizens stand up to be sheepdogs, because we gave them the chance. On more than one occasion when there has been a bombing of a law enforcement employment line in Iraq, the following day the line was longer. That is courage. And we need honor that courage and to stay until the flocks in both those countries are safe and well-protected by their own fuzzy, toothed companions.

Sometimes there are those that pretend to be sheepdogs, (by thinking they are protecting the sheep by telling them to run and hide), like Al Gore, who would prefer we kept our sheepdogs at home where they couldn't harm or offend the wolves. When asked recently about how things would be different if he was president, he answered "We would not have invaded a country that didn't attack us." In other words, he would have let the wolves have their way unless they harmed us specifically. To be honest, there are dozens of places in the places in the world I wish we could (and would) unleash our hordes of courageous, honest, and generous sheepdogs.

Before anyone starts with the 'you're a chickenhawk' squawk, one of the most interesting points Bill raises is that there is nothing wrong with being a sheep. They are generally productive, moral, positive people; they simply lack the instincts necessary to be a 200 pound, 4 legged tooth-carrier. Personally, I often wonder what I would be like in a crisis. Like Bill, sometimes I wish that I were near enough a crisis to find out. I believe that most American's, deep inside, have the capacity to be heroes. We see them on the news every day. We saw hundreds or thousands of heroes on the news on 9/11.

I used to daydream about living in the world of Mel Gibson's Road Warrior. A time where there are frontiers again, where there are bad people to fight against, and good people to protect. A place and time to figure out where I stood, truly stood, on the scales of men. Maybe I would fail, or run, or die, but at least I would know.