Like a mathematician, it finally hit me when I stopped thinking about it.

There’s a scene at the end of many sci-fi movies, Logan comes to mind as a standout, where we are shown a kind of intended-to-be-provocative indication that pre-pubescent children are willingly going to take on all the responsibilities classically assigned to adults.

These scenes always compel me to respond with, “It’s gonna be far more difficult and deadly than the hopefulness the Hollywood director betrays, buuuut I wouldn’t bet against life.”

This is exactly how I feel after sitting through that nearly six hour memorial service.

Wow. There were a lot of young speakers. That was remarkable to me. (Obviously.)

Three other thoughts (and one conclusion) I had include:

1. I couldn’t help but watch with an international perspective, especially the government speakers. I wouldn’t claim to have my finger on the pulse of Europe or Tommy Robinson etc, but I have to believe it would be difficult for any of the remaining Westerners in Europe to find a single fault in the entire proceeding. And if I was them, I would be thinking—right now—“America is with us. Now is the time to push ahead.”

2. I also couldn’t help but put on my “I’m a devout mohammedan” hat and try to decipher what these beautiful people were going off about. In that vein, the promotion of monogamy and the idea of responsible young men is where I would have been most bothered and intrigued. I mean, seriously, that I think, whatever the intentions of the various speakers (and whatever Kirk himself would have intended), I am a sucker for the idea that some challenges (“be a better/real man; it’s worth it”) cross all barriers and cause contemplation on the matter. What would a polygamist mohammedan have in retort? “Naw, dawg. Starting with our mommy, god gives his people many women to take care of us savages and the kids so we can play the oppressed victim and destroy beauty.”

Nope. They have no response because their Old Testament ways are barbaric and have been superseded for millennia.

So, I say, perhaps with too much hope, that some of them, obviously second generation that have lived among us for their entire heathen lives, were genuinely challenged and intrigued by the monogamy part of the speeches.

3. I also tried to watch with an “I’m Black and constantly affronted by every whitey who doesn’t say the words I want to hear (‘Free Kobe’ ‘Hands up, Don’t Shoot’ ‘Black Lives Matter’ etc)” hat. From this perspective, I thought the stage had too much red—definitely Neo-Nazi. The entire event was too white—this means it was a White Christian Nationalist rally (aka Lucifer in the flesh). “Of course they use Ben Carson”. And “sumpin’ ‘rong wid her eyez” while Erika spoke. In short, I would not have been impressed by any of it and I would not have felt welcomed by any of it. And I would not have been moved by any of it, even if Rubio, Kennedy, Hegsdeth, and Vance did share the same Gospel (in the same words) that my pastor has used on me.

****

My concluding thought is, “I felt it on 9/11. I felt it as I participated in OIF. I felt it years later at an evangelical seminary when the apologetics 501 class introduced me to the ‘kalam cosmological argument’, even admitting it was developed by mohammedan theologians. And I felt it while living up in Somalia/Minnesota. The singular and definitive conflict of our generation is Western Civilization vs Islam.”

F@&$ Iraq. F@&$ Afghanistan. F@&$ getting Bin Laden.

This memorial service was the first counterpunch.