"The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead."
--Rudyard Kipling, my favorite poet

Beneath the unfortunate racism in Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," there is an oft overlooked generosity. We, the self-proclaimed civilized world, have an obligation to help the less fortunate. We have an obligation to bring medicine to the sick and freedom to the oppressed. We may debate how best to improve the lot of the poor and I detest those who say we "owe" the developing world; this is not an obligation of the laws of Man, but an obligation to our own ideals, to the people we hope we can be.

Many young South Koreans wish American troops would leave their peninsula. The French oppose us often simply for opposition's sake, and to soothe their own bruised national ego. Does this mean we should have given the South Koreans over to the depraved cruelty of the North Korean Kims? Should we have left the French to rot under the iron heel of the Nazis? No, never. True virtue is its own reward, and expected thanks, even when deserved, is not a good enough reason to do the right thing.

It's three in the morning. I'm going to bed.