Word: almost
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...always seemed puzzling how the essentially pessimistic theology of Puritanism could become the underpinning of a buoyant, almost recklessly optimistic civilization. Part of the answer lies in the fact that the Puritan ethos not only posits the fall of man, it also implies the existence of an Elect of God. America has presumed itself to be God's chosen remnant, to the point where it very nearly subscribes to the anthropocentric heresy of Pelagius, the 5th century Christian ascetic who argued that man could gain salvation without divine grace by his efforts alone. Put in secular terms, the Pelagianism...
Today's young radicals, in particular, are almost painfully sensitive to these and other wrongs of their society, and denounce them violently. But at the same time they are typically American in that they fail to place evil in its historic and human perspective. To them, evil is not an irreducible component of man, an inescapable fact of life but something committed by the older generation, attributable to a particular class or the "Establishment," and eradicable through love and revolution. In fact, the fight against evil is more complex. "Good and evil, we know, in the field of this...
...begin to become fully evident until after government troops had retaken the city and uncovered a mass grave with 150 bodies. Their find led to the discovery of more grisly caches: 19 mass graves in and around Hué have so far yielded more than 2,300 bodies, almost all of them civilians, many with their hands tied behind their backs. Most had been shot or bludgeoned to death; others had been buried alive...
...Army in its case against Lieut. Calley and Sgt. Mitchell, the only active servicemen thus far accused of crimes at My Lai. For one thing, Army lawyers fear that detailed press interviews with potential witnesses may permit the accused to claim that they cannot get a fair trial. Almost surely, moreover, both Calley and Mitchell will argue at their trials that they acted under "superior orders," a legal defense that gained respectability in the 19th century when military officers extolled iron regimentation and insisted that superiors could do no wrong...
...several months after Richard Nixon took office, the sly rumor went around Washington that, in fact, there were no Republicans in town. They certainly seemed invisible. Nixon himself appeared almost anxious to avoid the capital-weekending at Key Biscayne, summering at San Clemente. To some, his minions seemed scarcely distinguishable from one another, a solid, stolid bloc of Rotarians, Elks, safe Middle-American technicians. "Writing about the Nixon Administration," sighed Humorist Art Buchwald, "is about as exciting as covering the Prudential Life Insurance...