Our Obligation When you were a child, perhaps elementary school, you may have witnessed the chaotic playtime: recess. Children pushing each other down or stealing each other’s toys. Most would look away: glad it wasn’t them. What did you do? What would you do now? Late in 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. This incident sparked the beginning of the deadliest conflict in human history. Due to isolationist ideals and many other reasons, The United States of America did not enter the war until 1941, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. By wars end over 60 million people lost their lives. Elie Wiesel was a survivor of this horrific conflict. At 15 years old, he was deported to Auschwitz death camp in 1944 with his family. Less than a year later,
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The United States did not want to enter the war at the expense of hundreds of billions of dollars and at the expense of millions of lives. Nevertheless, US involvement was inevitable. The US was free and able to defend those who could not defend themselves and therefore had an obligation to uphold freedom wherever it needed to be defended: the center of the universe. This goes to show that as long as persecution or oppression exist, we cannot be free from it. It should not take the danger of one’s self to motivate a defense of freedom anywhere in the world. If we wait until we are endangered, it might just be too …show more content…
The 9/11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers. These attacks introduced America to the very real dangers. These terror attacks were committed by those of the Islamic faith. This subsequently caused many US citizens to hate an entire race. People feel better when they can put a face on terror. Unfortunately, for those of middle eastern heritage, they chose the face of a Muslim. The simple truth is that terrorists come in all races and the face of terrorism cannot be generalized to an entire race of people. Although this can be a scary truth, the answer is not to shut out an entire race or religion. To do so would eliminate a powerful ally against terrorism and at the same time we let these terrorists know that we are fearful. As FDR stated in his inaugural address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” The United States must be careful not to persecute Muslims. We should persecute terrorism and refrain associating terror with any one religion. Our world leaders must learn from the past and apply those lessons to current events. We, the young people of the 21st century, must uphold the ideals of Elie
The United States did not want to enter the war at the expense of hundreds of billions of dollars and at the expense of millions of lives. Nevertheless, US involvement was inevitable. The US was free and able to defend those who could not defend themselves and therefore had an obligation to uphold freedom wherever it needed to be defended: the center of the universe. This goes to show that as long as persecution or oppression exist, we cannot be free from it. It should not take the danger of one’s self to motivate a defense of freedom anywhere in the world. If we wait until we are endangered, it might just be too …show more content…
The 9/11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers. These attacks introduced America to the very real dangers. These terror attacks were committed by those of the Islamic faith. This subsequently caused many US citizens to hate an entire race. People feel better when they can put a face on terror. Unfortunately, for those of middle eastern heritage, they chose the face of a Muslim. The simple truth is that terrorists come in all races and the face of terrorism cannot be generalized to an entire race of people. Although this can be a scary truth, the answer is not to shut out an entire race or religion. To do so would eliminate a powerful ally against terrorism and at the same time we let these terrorists know that we are fearful. As FDR stated in his inaugural address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” The United States must be careful not to persecute Muslims. We should persecute terrorism and refrain associating terror with any one religion. Our world leaders must learn from the past and apply those lessons to current events. We, the young people of the 21st century, must uphold the ideals of Elie