Kipling predates Powell predates Merkel, kipple

This is a comment about the recent terror in Germany, where a Pakistani immigrant drove through a Christmas market in Berlin: on the same day as another refugee stormed onto the stage of a Nativity Play and started preaching the Koran.

Closing the borders is not going to solve anything. Especially with thousands of extremists of variety of sorts already within the EU, some of them for couple generations. We must change our societies to accommodate our new citizens. Like President Obama said, the west will become less white and we will better for it. If white people do not want to accept that and work towards a better future then we deserve further reprisals.

Many of these incidents are clear responses to the violence and rhetoric of the West perpetrated against Muslims at home and abroad. As a citizen of a country who is a major aggressor and who actively terrorizes entire regions, I recognize my complicity in all of this. I vote for candidates with the knowledge that their policies will lead to further acts of war and terrorism of other people. I am not surprised when acts of terror are committed against ‘my’ people. Sad and angry, yes. Both sides are wrong, neither side is justified. And yet I’m sympathetic to both the aggressors and aggressees in whichever particular attack that’s being discussed.

For All We Have And Are

For all we have and are,
For all our children’s fate,
Stand up and take the war.

The Hun is at the gate!
Our world has passed away
In wantonness o’erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone!
Tough all we knew depart,
The old Commandments stand: —
“In courage keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand.”

Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old: —
“No law except the Sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled.”

Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight,
The ages’ slow-bought gain,
They shrivelled in a night.

Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through perils and dismays
Renewed and re-renewed.

Though all we made depart,
The old Commandments stand: —
“In patience keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand.”

No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.

There is but one task for all —
One life for each to give.

What stands if Freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

Rudyard Kipling

Kipling is right. Sometimes one has to fight. And sometimes the institutions that you thought were charities are your enemies. Do not converge with such, or any such like.