honor

Chris Knight's avatar

Over the weekend I watched Gettysburg, the 1993 Civil War epic film about the Battle of Gettysburg.  It’s one of my most favorite historical films, although at more than four hours long it’s really not one I can afford enough time to watch often.  But for some reason or another I felt led to see it again.

Maybe I sensed that I was needing to watch it anew.  That the time was coming soon to bring it up in conversation.  That opportunity comes tonight, after reading how President Donald Trump is restoring the name of seven military bases back to their original names that honored Confederate officers from the Civil War.  The bases had been re-named by the Biden administration to be more “neutral” or “politically correct”.  The venerated Fort Bragg became the vacuous-sounding “Fort Liberty”, f’rinstance.

Now, to be accurate about it, the Trump Administration is not ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, someone stole my bicycle. I’d only had it for just less than a year.

That’s probably the last I’ll ever see of it. When I found that it was missing I called the Reidsville Police Department and they sent an officer over promptly to look into it. He said they’d keep an eye out for it and I don’t doubt that they will … but all the same, by this evening I’m fairly accepting that it’s gone for good.

Whatever happened to the thing called “honor”? You know: the concept that you are supposed to do what’s right even when there’s nobody around to see you doing it. Or does such a thing even matter anymore?

Geez, can you believe how naïve I sound now? I mean, I live in a county where school board members demonstrate to children that it’s okay to ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Too many people in this country believe they’re honor-bound to follow the orders of other people… who never gave a damn about honor in the first place.

Fred Reed – master of the fine art of curmudgeonry – has a surgically precise piece about the concept of honor. I dare not excerpt anything from it here: it really is best to take this one in whole. Suffice it to say, I think it’s one of Reed’s better pieces… and they all tend to be good....

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