Obama and Sacrifice

[GenSeneca]

You have heard it said that this is an age of Moral crisis... You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope the words had no meaning. You have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded.

Since virtue to you consists of Sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to Morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed Self esteem to Self-Denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.

You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that you held to be good. Why then do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection.

Yes, this is an age of Moral Crisis. But it is not man who is now on trial, it is your moral code that's through this time. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not a return to morality... but to discover it.

Whoever is now within reach of my voice... whoever is man the victim not man the killer. I am speaking at the deathbed of your mind, at the brink of that darkness in which you're drowning. And if there still remains within you the power to struggle to hold onto those fading sparks which had been yourself, use it now. The word that has destroyed you is Sacrifice. Use the last of your strength to understand its meaning, your still alive, you have a chance....

Sacrifice does not mean a rejection of the worthless but of the precious. Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don't. If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice. If you give it to your neighbors child and let your own die, it is.

Do NOT call your best actions a Sacrifice, that term brands you as immoral.

If a mother buys food for her hungry child rather than a hat for herself, it is not a sacrifice... she values the child higher than the hat. But it is a sacrifice to the kind of mother who higher value is the hat.

Sacrifice is the surrender of the right to the wrong, of the good to the evil. If a man dies fighting for his own freedom it is not a sacrifice, he is not willing to live as a slave. But it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who is willing to live as a slave.

The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral. A sacrifice is the surrender of a value. Full sacrifice is full surrender of ALL values. You are told that moral perfection is impossible to man, and by this standard it is. You cannot achieve it so long as you live but the value of your life and of your person is gauged by how closely you come to approaching that ideal zero... which is death.

I believe there is only one candidate who can inspire the service and sacrifice that today's difficult times demand: Barack Obama. His plan for national service gives each of us the opportunity to live those values, American values.

Obama is the first national leader who has the power to inspire people to sacrifice and the rigor to maximize its impact.

The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice.

And yet, the price of our progress has always been borne by the struggle and sacrifice of our people - by leaders who have asked ordinary Americans to do extraordinary things; and by generations of men and women who've had the courage to answer that call.

For the rest of us – for those of us not in uniform or without loved ones in the military – the call to sacrifice for the country's greater good remains an imperative of citizenship.

It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation; of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility.

I won't pretend this change will be easy or that it will come without significant cost or some measure of sacrifice from the American people.

But if we're willing to work at it, and invest in it, and sacrifice for it; if we're willing to summon the same spirit of optimism and possibility that has defined this country's greatest progress, then I believe that we too will be able to do it if we really try.

It will not be easy. It will not come without cost or without sacrifice. And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they are either fooling themselves or trying to fool you.

They will take time, they will take sacrifice, and they will take a sustained commitment from the American people. As President, I will lead this commitment.

But in the end, enacting this agenda won't just require an investment. It will require a new spirit of cooperation, innovation, and shared sacrifice. We'll have to remind ourselves that we rise and fall as one nation; that a country in which only a few prosper is antithetical to our ideals and our democracy; and that those of us who have benefited greatly from the blessings of this country have a solemn obligation to open the doors of opportunity, not just for our children, but to all of America's children.

Don't tell me that we can't do better by our children, that we can't take more responsibility for making sure we're instilling in them the values and the ideals that the Moses generation taught us about sacrifice and dignity and honesty and hard work and discipline and self-sacrifice. That comes from us. We've got to transmit that to the next generation and I guess the point that I'm making is that the civil rights movement wasn't just a fight against the oppressor; it was also a fight against the oppressor in each of us.

I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. --Obama

And that is precisely the goal of your morality, the duty that your code demands of you. Give to that which you do not enjoy, serve that which you do not admire, submit to that which you consider evil - surrender the world to the values of others, deny, reject, renounce, your self. Your self is your Mind; renounce it and you will become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow.

It is your Mind they want you to surrender - all those who preach the creed of sacrifice. You are asked to sacrifice your intellectual integrity, your logic, your reason, your standard of truth - in favor of becoming a prostitute who's standard is the greatest good for the greatest number. --JG

 

[GenSeneca]

Who's willing to sacrifice what for Obama?

He is calling on ALL Americans to sacrifice... So I ask of you, those who want this man to have power - Those who should already know what Obama is asking Americans to sacrifice:

What are you PERSONALLY willing to sacrifice for Obama?

What is it that he has asked you to sacrifice that is so appealing, you're willing to force all America to sacrifice with you?