I read this short passage in a blog post by a fellow named Andy Swan:
Let’s be careful here that we don’t throw away our future liberty in order to avoid present pain. It’s not the American way. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.—http://andyswan.com/blog/?p=147
Exactly. Do you realize how many of the men who participated in the American revolution—men who were very wealthy in their day—died penniless because they sided with the colonists? They never saw the benefits that their sacrifice would bring about. We are hardly following in their footsteps in light of the way our nation appears to be so eager to force our children to bear later the pain that we are unwilling to bear today.
“Not the American way.” It occurs to me that it’s not the human—or perhaps I should say, humane—way. Throughout the history of this world, people of every tribe and tongue have sacrificed their wants, and even needs, to provide a better existence for their children.
The most disturbing crimes that we hear of are the ones in which a parent subjects his/her own offspring to some form of abuse. The only difference in this case is that the abuse is not immediate; it is set in a time bomb that will detonate in a generation, and by then no one will be able to diffuse it.
And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire … .—2 Kings 17:17 (NKJV)