On a long, quiet drive home from St. Louis this week, I listened to news reports of the London bombing and the tragedy created apparently by Muslim extremists. The reports made you want to change stations and somehow erase the chaos that envelopes our world. But you're compelled to listen and share the heartbreak. That was not so long ago our country coping with the religious zealots. And as we all know, it may well someday soon be our homeland attacked once again.
And so that quiet drive afforded me the opportunity to ponder the worries of the world. But answers to these complex problems do not come easily.
It's evident that the whole of mankind simply cannot peacefully co-exist. I wish that were not the case. The Bible would teach us that we can indeed live in harmony with one another despite our differences in color, culture, religion and a host of differences. But our Bible is not the standard for a majority of mankind. And the notion of peace among all cultures is not embraced by everyone.
So the conclusion - not the solution - is simple. We cannot today and perhaps never can expect all cultures to accept the faith and direction of others. Some cultures are based on their desire to compel and demand others to accept their premise for life. The life we view are precious is viewed with disdain by others. And those others - we'll call them our enemies - will stop at virtually nothing to disrupt our way of life.
In my mind on that long trip I tried to concoct a geographic scheme so that all of the world's people could live in harmony by living apart. One area would be for one culture and another area for yet another. But that plan is seriously flawed for countless reasons.
And yet on some levels we are all dependent on one another.
Perhaps humanity is simply doomed to self-destruct. It probably won't come in one doomsday calamity but rather through an erosion of the building blocks of a culture - character, integrity, honor, acceptance, compassion. That erosion has probably already begun.
I'm not sure who are defined as radical Muslim extremists and what other nations have done to enraged their passions toward destruction. These people are not fearful of democracy they simply do not recognize the rights of all others to live life as they see fit. And their answer to this dilemma is to wreak havoc and death on innocent victims for some reason that remains beyond my understanding.
We can either accept the notion that we will continue to live in some level of fear or we can address the situation head-on. But we lack the stomach to take the radical approaches that would reduce or eliminate this threat.
Today we should stand strong and proud beside the British as they mourn their losses. But tomorrow or sometime soon we should cease our efforts toward diplomacy and use the military might that makes us strong. If we don't send a signal today, tomorrow might be too late. Unless we answer these radicals, we give them strength. Our signal must make "shock and awe" look like a Sunday picnic.
If the problem lies in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, then tomorrow those mountains should be leveled in a display that will make the rest of the world take note. And when the next world terrorist surfaces in some other far-flung region, that area too should feel the response of a civilized society.
Much of our problem is that we confuse civilized with being passive and tolerant. Sometimes tolerance is won at the end of a sword.