During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill received intelligence that the English city of Coventry, an industrial center important to the production of British war materiel, was quite soon to be bombed by the Germans. Since the intelligence had been derived from German communications via secret code, and the British had recently gained the ability to decipher the German code, Churchill did not want to alert the Germans that their code had been broken, and chose instead to leave Coventry uninformed and lightly defended against attack. 554 British citizens were killed in the subsequent bombing. Churchill was prepared to accept this short term loss of life in order to maintain the secret British ability to decipher German communications and so to ultimately win the war, avoiding much greater prolonged bloodshed and loss of life. This utilitarian view of the death of his own countrymen begs the question—is it justified to sacrifice lives in the short term in order to most certainly save many more lives in the long term?
My English father was MI5 during WWII. Embedded with standard troops while positioned in the English Channel on a troop transport ship, an identical transport ship close by was torpedoed by a German U-boat. As the ship sank, dumping hundreds of British soldiers into the frigid waters, they cried out for the captain of my father’s ship to save them. The captain, knowing his ship to be still a live target for the Nazi U-boat, and that they were already overloaded and could not take more passengers on without risking the capsizing of his own ship and the death of his own men also, turned and motored away from the drowning men and towards the original destination. All the hundreds of men left floating in the frigid English Channel died that day. It traumatized my father for the rest of his life, remembering the cries for help from his countrymen.
Was the captain justified in his decision to secure the lives under his command, while neglecting the lives of the men from the other boat that he actually could not effectively save? If he had responded to the men’s cries and attempted a rescue, and had lost his men as well as those from the other ship that day, would he have been considered a better man in the sight of the families of the at risk men, or in the hindsight of recorded history?
In life and in human conflict, rational yet difficult decisions that men do not want to make, must be made. The greatest net human benefit must be the strongest guiding factor in these decisions. Morally correct yet tortuous decisions must be made under pressure, as the lesser of two evils must be chosen with courage, during careful pre-planning and also quickly under great pressure, in order to arrive at the most benevolent net result. Though these decisions may haunt their makers, the memory of doing right under enormous pressure endures. If allowed to take hold, a sense of personal forgiveness can emerge and grow in the person burdened with the responsibility of such decisions, replete ultimately with a sense of pride at the exercise of courage—though mixed ultimately with a great and permanent sadness.
In today’s America, her conservatives, who adhere to our traditional moral and ethical tenets, must consider our similar and extremely difficult decisions carefully. As the hard left continues to align themselves with historic and current day regimes that have and do today enslave their citizens, stripping their God given rights, murdering and oppressing them—what is to be done? How must we prevent this calamity from befalling us? What is the difficult but morally correct decision to be made in response? How will we ensure that the hard left in America will not follow their philosophical brethren in their murderous ends, as has every truly socialist regime in history? How also will we prevent them from not only oppressing and murdering us as political adversaries, but from also continuing to slaughter 900,000 of our most vulnerable emerging citizens every single year in the womb?
It has become quite clear that a political solution is no longer available to us, as the hard left has perfected techniques to alter the national vote to their liking, rendering us unable to affect the American situation through political participation, though many conservatives refuse to recognize this reality. It is also quite clear that the Supreme Court has been bullied into submission by the left and their violent threats, and have not and will not, in many seminal instances, stand in defense of our constitutional rights under great leftist political pressure. Therefore I ask, how will we prevent our subjugation and oppression, and the continued slaughter of our precious and innocent unborn children? Are we to assume that the left will break with their long historical pattern of violence against traditionalists? Do we imagine that their bloodlust for the death of the unborn will subside naturally? Do we simply adopt the normalcy bias, hiding our heads and assuming that things will continue on as always, that there is no need to worry, and that no defensive action will be required? All this is folly, and will lead to our certain subjugation and the continued and increasing loss of life at the hands of the left. Make no mistake about it—they dance with demons as they plan our oppression and murder, and as they rejoice in the continued murder of the unborn. They are not of us, as they hate the abiding and just principles that Americans have believed in traditionally. They are no longer our countrymen.
It will bode much better to abandon our defensive position, from whence we can never break out of our current danger, and with full hearts set our country right again. We are in the midst of losing the greatest country in the history of man, letting it go on our historical watch, to our great and eternal shame. We continue to follow false prophets and false hopes that mire us in inaction. If we continue as is, our names will go down in history as those indecisive American cowards, who were given by God the greatest nation in the history of man, yet who could not raise enough righteous concern to protect this gift from destruction.
Should a civil war begin, hundreds of thousands of Americans may die on both sides of the conflict. Yet if we ultimately save through our efforts hundreds of millions of Americans from being subjugated under tyranny, saving millions of them from being imprisoned or killed because of their traditional political beliefs, while at the same time saving the vast majority of the 900,000 yet unborn Americans from being slaughtered in the womb each and every year— can we not assume a civil war initiated to accomplish these righteous aims would be the lesser of two evils, and would in the end be judged a benevolent action?
Churchill made the right choice at Coventry. My father’s captain made the right choice in the English Channel. Do we have the insight, courage, and resolve to make the right choice in our own time in America? I pray that we find this courage in our hearts in time to save her for future generations.
American Renewal