Organizing for America | Jeffrey Burke's Blog: Barack's Philosophical Justification to go on the Attack.

Barack's Philosophical Justification to go on the Attack.

By Jeffrey from Highland, CA who is going to meet President Obama at the Inauguration in January - Aug 21st, 2008 at 4:29 am EDT

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Late at night, if I am up, I ponder deeper than normal thoughts. This is such a night.

It has occurred to me that Obama is philosophical, and has received a classic education - one which may not lend him instinctively to fight back as a course of action, but to try to stay above the fray.

With my Catholic upbringing, I remember the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo - he characterizes the four conditions that characterize what is known as the Just War Doctrine. They include:

* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

Given the perilous state of our nation, I am convinced that Obama has the complete justification to use all methods of campaigning to defeat McCain.

Obama always discusses what Dr. King describes as "The Fierce Urgency of Now". Certainly, a solid case can be made for the four qualifications given above that fit our sense of urgency in this campaign.

The Doctrine above was written in the first half of the first Millennium AD. It is old, and it has been the common standard used by civilized nations as a benchmark for when to decide to fight. If Obama is looking for a moral justification to excuse an inner compass that prohibits him from engaging in anything less than Just War, come to terms with what we are up against, and especially resolve the fourth quality, that your campaign will all tool to win.

To quote Churchill, I know this one by heart: "What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory! Victory at all costs; Victory, in spite of all terror; Victory, no matter how long and hard the road may be - for without victory, there is no survival."

These are the stakes for the United States. Let us work to ensure, as as citizens of the United States, we do not find ourselves, as Schiller said about revolutionary France that, "A great moment has found a little people."

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