Wayne Gilchrist, Rudyard Kipling, and Jacob Brownosky

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.

Posted Oct 30, 2008      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Wayne Gilchrist, Rudyard Kipling, and Jacob Brownosky

by Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.

Congressman Wayne Gilchrist (R-MD) was among the speakers at a gala dinner sponsored by the Council for the National Interest (CNI) to honor Congressman Paul Findley, author of They Dare to Speak Out. CNI seeks to re-orient American foreign policy to the benefit of the United States rather than foreign countries. Congressman Gilchrist, who recently lost his party’s primary bid for re-election to Congress, quoted Rudyard Kipling’s sober and depressingly timely observation: “Why did young men die? Because old men lied.”

Gilchrist reported that the ayatollahs of Iran told him that they consider America an Islamic country because its founding document, the Declaration of Independence, contains the statement “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.”

Consider the precarious situation of the world today. As old men lied about Iraq they now lie about Iran. How do we prevent more young men from dying? Gilchrist turned to Jacob Bronowski’s observation (in his PBS program “The Ascent of Man”) on ignorance, arrogance and dogma, of the three vices that throughout history together have been humanity’s greatest enemy. The cure, he said, is to replace ignorance with knowledge, arrogance with humility, and dogma with tolerance.

Amen.

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.
Minaret of Freedom Institute
http://www.minaret.org

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