Clay Higgins

[Martin Eden]

31. American Taliban is worse than Afghan Taliban

Americans with wealth and privilege have not suffered for generations fighting foreign occupiers, scraping by just to survive. Holding onto their religious faith kept the Afghans going, as odious as their fundamentalist patriarchy and intolerance of others may be.

Clay Higgins and his ilk betray the peaceful tolerance and welcoming kindness ostensibly at the core of their religion. They also betray the highest ideals and rule of law in the United States Constitution which has bestowed on them the blessings of liberty and prosperity, however imperfect and inequal that path has been for others with less privilege.

America is supposed to be the best hope of mankind -- an idea based on human rights and equality, rejecting the tribal animosity and tyranny which has plagued human civilization throughout recorded history.

162 years ago today in Pennsylvania, dedicating a cemetery for fallen Union soldiers, Abraham Lincoln said, in part:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

Are we not now engaged in a struggle to test whether our nation, so conceived, will endure?