Famous Sayings

On becoming soldiers we have not ceased to be citizens.

- Oliver Cromwell

A quick comment:

Everyone MUST remember this.

This is particularly true for public servants, military, police, fire and other personnel who risk to serve and protect.

The most tragic example of forgetting the wisdom of these words id Abu Ghraib prison abuse, or things like the My Lai Massacre.

These horrible things that took place were barbaric.  Soldiers and public servants are citizens, and if they cease to be citizens, then they become barbarians and mercenaries.

Not only is the image of this bad, more important the reality of it is terrible because it contradicts the very things that we are fighting for and base our existence on. Freedom.  Justice and the American way.

We are not criminals.  So lets not act like it no matter what.  Otherwise we need to stop fighting and join the enemy because we just became like them and embraced their philosophy anyhow.

We then become our own worst enemy and have defeated ourselves and our cause, and the foundations on which we stand.

We must get rid of Machiavellian thinking…

We are a nation of laws, of freedom, democracy, liberty, justice and goodness.  We stand for principles based on moral absolutes of right and wrong, traced back to the Bible.  No one is above the law.  No one is below the law.

Citizenship may become somewhat modified in direct combat, but even so there remains a basic responsibility called chivalry, honor, a code of conduct and the Geneva Conventions.

These would not exist if there were no need to counterbalance the horror of warfare considering the tendencies of those terrified and hurt or angered and troubled by war may also be otherwise terrible and out of control in rash response and retaliation.

What to do with this quote:

Teach it to every public servant.  Make them know it, understand it, repeat it and practice it so that we may never become like those bent on evil and destruction, pretending to care for a principle of faith and goodness, while continually denying the same in all that they do.

Otherwise we are no better than those we fight, and we contradict the very principles we are fighting for and set those once bondaged, free from.

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Tags: Citizen Soldiers, Machiavellian, Machiavellian Thinking, Soldiers and Citizens

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Military Sayings . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.