2.20 CURRENT NEWS, ETC

worldmag, 2.26.2011, p20..in article on alan wolfe trying to understand dietrich bonhoeffer..'for (bonhoeffer)..the evilness of the nazis could not be defeated via old fashioned 'ethics', 'rules', and 'principles'..the best we can do in the most difficult times is not to view ourselves as free agents possessed with choices, but as subjects of a God whom we trust without reservation'..

indeed humanity is complicated. but courage is simple, a matter of paring away the rationalizations. for the soldier under fire; do i consider my preferences, or stand with my comrades? for the firefighter before a burning building: do i calculate my odds or do i rush in? for the christian in hostile circumstances: do i bargawith God, or do i believe Him?

p.34..in article analyzing current egyptian leader mubarak's step down from power after popular dissent in recent weeks..'the obama administration's reaction to egyptian events has changed from day to day. that's no knock on it at a time when events move fast, but it has elevated the bush administration's tendency to favor democracy rather than liberty into a general principle: our goal seems to be elections, period. and yet, elections without a free press usually produce dictators and democracy without religious liberty produces the tyranny of the mob.

the obama administration has shown its blindness throughout the crisis; for example, president obama's speech on feb 1 listed various freedoms egyptians needed but conspicuously left out 'religion'. islamists have killed and persecuted coptic christians in egypt, and quick-to-speak obama has not spoken. congress has appropriated funds for busting the firewalls that regimes in china, iran, egypt and elsewhere use to restrict internet access in their countries and quick-to-spend obama bureaucrats have not spent those dollars.

..even the american revolution ended well only because it was the work of a century, with colonies becoming largely self-governing early in the 1700s, press and religious liberty gaining solid backing in the 1730s and local leaders - 'lesser magistrates' - asserting themselves in the 1760s. countries that tried to rush the process - france in the 1790s, for instance - typicllly ended up wading in blood'.