GOODSPEED, Peter "Sept 11 took giant out of its shell,"

Toronto, Canada: National Post, January 26, 2003
by Robert Brow  (www.brow.on.ca)


Peter Goodspeed has identified the immense psychological shift that has gone on in the American mind. From only a fitful interest in what goes on in other parts of the world, America has now accepted a nationalistic "manifest destiny." Like the Pax Romana they regard "their values and institutions as embodying universal aspirations."

Like Rome, America intends to use overwhelming power to dominate the world. And the purpose is to bring democracy, the rule of law, and well-being to all people. As Bush said at West Point "We fight, as we always fight, for a just peace - a peace that favors human liberty." Europeans, Canadians, and other critics had better understand that Americans are no longer ashamed to be in that role. They have a new pride and determination.

The Americans are sick of trying to use the indirect pressures of "soft power." They will no longer waste time with the petty self-serving African nations who have opposed them in the United Nations (e.g. the last straw of appointing Quaddafi's Libya to take care of the world's civil rights!). They have lost patience with interminable discussions by people who have no power to do anything but feather their own nest. If Americans are as arrogant as the Romans, so be it. If dogs yapped at the feet of the legions, too bad for the critters.

Why should Americans bother with "international co-operation in the form of old arms control treaties, the Kyoto Protocol, an International Criminal Court" (Canadians might add cooperating on free trade and our lumber problems)?

Having read Peter Goodspeed on line this morning, I can see that this "mother of all model shifts" has already taken place. The Pax Americana is a fact with total overwhelming power.. The only interesting question is what do we Christians do about it?

We did pretty well under the Pax Romana. Admittedly we lost a few of our best who got martyred. But I have a feeling we do far better under firm control than under committees with hidden agendas to make rules against us. Under the iron heel of Rome Paul said "Those authorities that exist have been instituted by God" (Romans 13:1). That does not deny that in his own time the Messiah toppled Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and presided over the The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the French and British empires, plus Nazism, Communism, Maoism, and a string of others. America might be in far more desperate financial trouble than Wall Street lets on. But right now I renounce the attempt to judge our neighbor by my petty ideas of what could be done in an ideal world.

Meanwhile I am as free as I ever was to love, and to serve Jesus the Messiah in his eternal Kingdom, and to make the good news of his freedom known.


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