The Conservative View
by Russell Turner
Kevlar and Boxing
Over the past years more and more police officers and soldiers are wearing Kevlar vests when they are on duty. Without the use of the vests many police officers and soldiers would not have lived when shot in the line of duty. The vest is a defensive tool. The vest cannot be used as a weapon to injure our kill someone but it provides the protection to save the lives of good people that could have been killed or crippled in the line of duty. A wise person always plans for the defense of their family and themselves. With that in mind I have some very serious concerns about the decision by the current administration to scale back the missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
We Americans may have watched too many graphic horror movies or played too many violent video games. May be we have become numb to the horror that can be in the world. I remember the words of one of our presidents when he said that in a nuclear war the living would envy the dead. If a missile defense system could save only one city, the price of the system would be cheap. There are more countries every day that are trying to acquire nuclear weapons. It will only be a matter of time until some one will push the button and use them.
Some nations are pleased with the decision to cancel the system, one of them being Russia. We Americans need to come to the realization that there are people in this world that do not like us. How much sense does it make to not use a protective measure that could save millions of people, if we used the same mentality we would ask police officers and soldiers to quit using Kevlar.
Many of us enjoy the sport of boxing and we can learn a lot about life by watching the sport. In boxing there is a set of rules and after each round the boxers can go to their corners and prepare for the next round. The sport of boxing may be a rough sport but there are rules, in the art of war there are no rules. One side will not stop when the bell rings to allow us to prepare for the next battle. No matter how good of a punch a boxer might have, if he cannot fend of the punches of his opponents he will never win.
