This one is controversial... So controversial I refuse to put it on facebook... and maybe I should reserve it for one of my three secret blogs... (which I never told you about ;-) )
I see such hate in this world... That's all mankind is good at spreading. I see so few stories about something good being done, or compassion on this Earth... it really starts to discourage me. My society states that there are so many other societies that will never stop fighting. So what do we do? We fight first. Is there love left? I don't see anyone who is able to put themselves in someone else's shoes. I have not met many people who think what their actions will do to another person from the other person's perspective. Out of those few, some do the actions fully knowing the harm it will do. That's a special kind of selfishness. It boggles the mind to think that the same political party that is dead set against gun registration is in support of the patriot act. It really bugs me when they quote Benjamin Franklin by saying "Those who sacrifice liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither," and don't see the huge idiocy. (Now in my opinion, gun registration has nothing to do with liberty but that's a different blog for a different time.) We sold our soul and became everything we've ever hated. And the reason is just one world... fear.
Or how about I use a synonym for fear? Terror. That's right, terror has changed our identity. That thing the terrorists are spreading to change America... well they spread it... and it changed America. We're in terror that the government is going to take away our guns. We're in terror that the government is becoming rooted in facism. We're in terror that Obama might be the next Hitler. We torture prisoners (cuz we are still stuck in the middle ages) and we justify getting away with it because they're not American citizens. We have only the concept of American rights... no concepts of human rights anymore. We're so xenophobic that when France did not support Bush's actions in Iraq, America decided to hate France... even though it turned out France was right. Let me reduce this to a schoolyard setting. America got all his friends to make fun of France because France didn't want to beat up Iraq simply for being friends with Afghanistan and maybe having some stink bombs. That's America for you... the fucking Jr. High student of the UN.
Nerdmode: When I was in Colorado for my cousin's wedding a couple years ago, we took a week off and made a vacation of it (like you do). Well on Sunday morning in church, I noticed in their bulletin that they had a Star Trek bible study that night. I told my parents about it and sure enough it was just as it sounds. They watch an episode of some form of Star Trek, read some scriptures that tie in to a theme in the episode, and have a discussion about it. The leader of the study picked an old favorite from the original series: Balance of Terror. It involves the Enterprise pursuing a Romulan warbird after it attacks several outposts, and makes a point of the parallels between Kirk and the Romulan commander, having one of the best lines in the series at the end: "In a different reality, I could have called you friend." This last line also fit in with the subplot which was the theme of the study. A bridge officer of the Enterprise is descended from some servicemen who served during the war with the Romulans. As such, he harbors a deep resentment towards the Romulans, a race that no one has ever even seen before. A whole war fought with a race you have no idea what they look like. Well then we get our first look at them... and they have pointed ears... in fact it is revealed that Romulans and Vulcans share ancestry... which makes this bridge officer lose it on Mr. Spock.
End Nerdmode
The point of that paragraph was to set up the discussion that followed. The study leader explained that such resentment and lack of forgiveness nearly cost the ship its life. As the discussion moved towards forgiving our enemies, the inevitable case of Osama Bin Laden was brought up. Should we forgive him? The study leader replied that while we should lock him up so he cannot harm again, we should not kill him. That matter of life or death should not be left up to us.
That night Osama Bin Laden was killed.
I keep thinking what that leader must have thought. Here she just told this group of people that Bin Laden should be spared and then the whole of American public opinion just kinda backlashed her. At the time I felt like a weight had been lifted, that we finally had him. Now that I look back... it was wrong. I remember the old Superman stories, always started with truth, justice, and the American way! But Superman never killed. He even went so far as to refuse to exterminate a virus because it was still life. The American way used to be locking the bad guy up, or his dying by his own hand. Superman could not ever bring himself to do it. One issue... he did. He killed three criminals for destroying billions of people. The act wound up haunting him forever... well until DC rebooted. American way used to involve a soul... it doesn't anymore. We're too afraid. Terror has changed us.
The terrorists won.
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