Joe Kelley
Administrator
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17876.htm
Responsibility
By Sgt. Kevin Benderman
The question is; will we get smart enough to stop it?
Sgt. Kevin Benderman served a combat tour in Iraq and returned home to file a conscientious objector application as his legal refusal to participate further in an unjust, immoral action. He was court-martialed for his actions and served over a year in prison. Kevin and his wife Monica are now working on projects to integrate veterans and communities, and will be speaking about their experiences on a Truth Be Told tour beginning this summer.
Kevin and Monica may be reached at info@bendermansbridge.org
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17861.htm
Fighting Back
By Monica Benderman
“These are the times that try men’s souls: the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly…” - - (Thomas Paine, The American Crisis. Dec. 19, 1776.)
When the time comes upon innocent people to kill or be killed there will be a need for something. Where can that something be found?
I suggest, strongly, that volunteering to open your mind now may avoid having your mind opened by force - later. No one lives long in falsehood. Your orders will be to kill or be killed. If you can’t, then, start digging your own grave. If, instead, you choose to fight, then, the first step is awareness - an open mind. It is not too late.
http://www.ushistory.org/Paine/commonsense/sense2.htm
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
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