There are too many weenies in the world, and not enough people willing to take action.

For Film & Spirituality yesterday, we watched Dogville, starring Nicole Kidman. This fantastic film is set in the early 20th century in a small Colorado town (small as in under 20 residents). I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice it to say the love interest is a weenie and doesn’t do what he should to protect the woman he supposedly cares about.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading Tom Clancy’s Teeth of the Tiger, which features the son of his well-known character Jack Ryan (Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games - played by Harrison Ford) and his twin cousins. The premise is that Islamic terrorists attack the US again, but this time a para-governmental agency, completely off the books, is poised to strike back at “The Organization” responsible for the attacks.

The theme, repeated almost so often that Clancy must think we’re stupid, is that some people need to be killed even when there’s not a legal way to do it. So the book is about a squad of assassins sent out to dismantle the terrorist organization. Exactly the opposite of what happens in Dogville.

The movie really had me ticked off, right up to the end, that a guy could be such a weenie and stand by while evil was perpetrated on the woman he loved - or any innocent person, for that matter.

The downside of not being a weenie - and Clancy brings this up a lot, too - is that you tend to get overzealous. “What if we kill the wrong guy?” the assassins ask each other over and over. “We’ll make sure we get the right bad guy” is the reply each time. In the present political situation, with the Iraq war and the US Presidential election, I have to admit that, while the basis for starting the war is pretty weak, I am glad that there are still some non-weenies in the world. More specifically, I am glad that the current occupant of the White House - whatever else you may think of him - can’t be called a weenie.

You’ve heard the quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” (Edmund Burke). My search for the exact wording of that quote led me to this one from Ayn Rand: The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

So here’s to those who have risen to the defense of the innocent.

God presides in the great assembly;
he gives judgment among the “gods”:

“How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
Selah

Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” (PS 82:1-4)

So I guess I should end with a question. What are the challenges of rising to this call?