Hated for Our Virtues: France, USA, and the World

God save France and the West.

If enough people hate France enough to die to kill Frenchmen, then stopping them will be very hard. One reason this will be a long war is the cause of the hatred.

We are not just hated for our vices, but for our virtues.

You could hate the West for her vices and God knows we have them. Past generations colonized large parts of the world and now we are forcing a decadent morality on an unwilling world.

Western people might be able to do something about this hatred. We could repent and make restitution.

But if we are hated for our virtues, then the problem is not in us. Of course our vices contribute to the problem, but if we were without guilt, an open society would inflame the wicked.

France is built on the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The United States is built on similar ideas:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

At her best the West does not think any individual can simply take your life, because it is a gift from God. When we are living up to our heritage, we think that you have an absolute right to do good. As we are consistent with our political creed, we think each human must be given the opportunity to flourish: body, soul, and spirit.

Our great ally, France, takes fraternity, the Christian idea of the brotherhood of all humankind very seriously. Fraternity is a bond of love and not of hate. Any culture that is built on power and wrath will not find a fraternal society comfortable.

All these values produce our virtues, but are antithetical to any group that believes some people are better than others. An open society will always err on the side of allowing maximum freedom to the individual and this will chafe those who would put each individual in chains lest they sin.

Yet we will have disadvantages in this fight. We must love and they may hate. We must play by the rules because they are what makes civilization. They have no rules or wicked policies because they are barbarians.

We cannot create a totalitarian state to save a free society. We cannot silence political thought in order to protect freedom of speech.

If we are Christians, we cannot hate our enemies in order to save Christendom. We cannot punish groups, only the guilty. We cannot torture, fight like barbarians, or give an eye for an eye.

We can fight, but the barbarians have advantages as they always seem to do. They will do whatever, we must not.

Yet as always, we will win if we persist in our values. Why? Love is more powerful than hate. A just war is more potent than an unjust war: hate loses what it gains. Conquer quickly, rule badly, and lose.

We must be patient, endure, practice what we preach, and repent of our decadence. Perhaps this is a good time to remember happiness is not consumerism and that liberty is not being libertine.

Morality and Liberty: they will carry us to victory.

Meanwhile, God save France, our oldest ally. God comfort the hurting and bring justice with mercy on her enemies.