“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” -G. K. C.

You shouldn’t have to take more than a couple of steps outside of a movie theater to realize that this is a place worth fighting for.  And to fight is to sacrifice.  Unfortunately, this is not apparent to a lot of people these days.  Because evil isn’t just, over there, it’s here too.  And not just in the sense that we are all fallen, that we all have sin, but it is deliberate and more pronounced in some.  Some people don’t appreciate good when it is right in front of their face, and some people actively fight for evil, right here in the good old U. S. A..

Chesterton said that what’s important about a myth or legend isn’t what it says about the person, but what it says about the people who hold onto that myth.  Every story is a partial story, it isn’t a complete tape recording it is a picture, painted with words, an art.  Every man who walks this earth has flaws, but there truly are great men.  Only a fool spends his life destroying these men or telling stories about their flaws.  It’s not important if every detail of the movie is an exact replica of the life of Kyle.  Of course ugly parts were passed over and his achievements were glorified.  America loves the book version of Chris Kyle, America loves the movie version of Chris Kyle and that’s not a bad thing.  Because we become like our heroes.

In the sixties movies about the wonders of free and open sex were aplenty, like The Graduate.  Adultery was actually illegal in California at the time!  And soon after it wasn’t, and soon free and open sex were everywhere.  In the eighties Van Halen was Hot for Teacher, and today you can read about female teachers having sex with their students almost daily.  When you idolize bad ideals, you get bad people.  Is it really so bad to lift up a man for his remarkable accomplishments, even if he was very flawed?  I don’t think so.  Our children need role models.  I wonder how many of these critics would like to have the entire force of the media picking through their lives with a fine tooth comb.  Which is why we still know nothing of Obama’s past.  It has been erased by strong arming and bribes.  Those who mock traditional heroes, make a mockery of themselves, they have heroes too, just the wrong kind of heroes.  Heroes such as Clinton or Kennedy, no one even bothers to cover up their evil, they just lower the standards.  And so today often sex isn’t sex and lying and sleeping around are fine. Because too many people picked bad heroes.

There are many heroes in the Bible.  Abraham, Issac and Jacob, Moses and Elijah, or David.  I remember mentioning that these men were ‘righteous’ to a friend and he was making fun of me because these man had flaws.  I pointed out that it wasn’t I who called them righteous, but scripture itself.  They are also called “a man after God’s own heart” and “men of faith”.   Their flaws should be a warning, but that should not overshadow the importance of remembering their greatness.

So, just what does this movie say about our culture?  First of all it says that we are divided.  There are a lot of people who hate this movie and a lot more who love it.  Of the latter, it says that they love someone willing to get up off the couch of their own selfish life, and protect the innocent.  It says that they love someone who has sex before marriage. Ok America you get a fail on this one.  It says that they love someone who is willing to stare evil in the face and deal with it.  It says that they love someone who is very good at what he does.  It says that they love someone who gives up what he loves for his family.  It says that we realize that excellence is the result of hard work and trials.  It says that we have a place for the Bible even if it’s only in our breast pocket. It says that we would love it if the Middle East would spend their afternoons watching movies instead of living like barbarians and trying to kill us.

But there is the other side, the evil within.  Their heroes are Woodward and Bernstein, the iconoclasts.  Because we all know there is nothing good in this world.  Well, except for whatever you feel like.  Their heroes are similar to the hero of the Middle East, the Prophet.  A bloodthirsty, lazy, caveman, coward, polygamist, who married into money and fell into fame by a scheme so good it could have only been made possible by Satan himself.  No I’m not talking about our Secretary of State, John Kerry, I’m talking about Muhammed. Hollywood and academia love this type of hero.  Which is why the Tsarnaev brothers didn’t really stand out at Harvard.  Hollywood spends most of their time trying to destroy the heroes of middle America like Kyle.  But they are not without their own heroes, men like Castro, Che, Mao, Marx, Darwin, and even Lucifer himself.  As Bill Ayers, hero mentor of both Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, dedicated his book to Lucifer.  Ok you can have your Michael Moore.  We are quite happy with Clint Eastwood and his myth.  Someday our kids will give their lives to protect the lazy bastard children of your hollywood academia.