"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. There is an idea, Mr. Creedy - and ideas are bulletproof."

The quote above is from the great movie; V for Vendetta. V says this after being repeatedly shot by government agents and one of them (Mr.Creedy) asks why just won't die. It relates to the quote I have chosen from our reading on page xiv; "History makes it clear that we may die, as we may live, as a result of what someone believed to be quite true in the relatively remote past."

All throughout history people have laid down their lives in the name of the ideas they believed in or, sometimes more importantly, in what their leaders believed in. Right now wars are being fought in the name of freedom, democracy, and secularism. Most of the great memorable battles in history are relevant today because they were fighting for ideas. The Persian Wars, Peleponnesian, Punic Wars, Crusades, American Civil War, and World War II were all clashes of ideologies. These wars are relevant to us today because they dictated which ideas were going to live on to the next generations. Its mind blowing to think that in an indirect way, the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, or the Romans on the sands of Tunisia dodging Punic elephants are responsible for giving us the opportunity to vote. Seems like we should thank the greeks for more than just souvlaki.