“When a man does something he’s ashamed of, he always says it’s his duty”
I recently read a sad story about an emotionally disturbed man in New York, suicidal, who’s apartment was surrounded by police. He fled through a window to the fire escape, couldn’t go up, couldn’t go down. Cop tactical team had him pinned.
A police lieutenant ordered that he be tasered. He was, and fell to his death. If that’s not bad enough, the lieutenant, disgraced and mired in guilt, took his own life.
Our Civil War. Civil? What’s ‘civil’ about nearly 700,000 countrymen killing each other? Over 50,000 at Gettysburg alone. In a few days.
1985 Philadelphia: police bomb some radicals, destroy a city block and kill 5 children and 6 adults.
Just a few examples. How many more, larger and smaller? And why?
We have a war going on right now in the Middle East, for questionable reasons. We’ve had questionable wars in the past.
On a daily b
asis we see police storming a house and killing someone, or being killed. What if we just…waited.
What’s the hurry, sometimes? Leave ‘em there, don’t let them out, cut the power and water. They’ll come out sometime. We don’t always need a SWAT team.
Why did that poor man have to be tasered and killed to prevent his possible suicide? What was the hurry? He was no threat. Just a bother to be dealt with. So he was killed.
Why did 700,000 people have to die in the Civil War? Could we have not discussed the situation a bit more, recognized the trends of the future and worked things out at a cheaper price? Maybe trade a few more years of slavery for a transition to a different economic solution, sans nearly a million dead and a catastrophic aftermath? With the awful future than followed? How much was it worth to go to war! What was the gain? And who gained? The dead? The slaves who remain to this day economic and social slaves? Who gained?
They did. Those who profited from the chaos of war and it’s aftermath. No one else. No one.
What was the hurry in Philadelphia? They weren’t going anywhere, they had no ability to cause harm. They’d get hungry, or cold, sooner or later. But no, drop a bomb. Kill them and their kids, show your power, please the powers that be. Show who’s boss.
Was the price worth it?
And worth it to whom?
Shall we even mention the mess at Waco, Texas? Where the government murdered 76 Americans because their lifestyle was ‘unacceptable’?
“Government is that entity which reserves the right for itself to kill those who disagree with it”. Sweet.
Of course, when an aggressor attacks, something must be done. But how many times have we seen situations both local and international when impatience rules the day. Diplomacy, compromise, understanding are given up for the sake of expediency or ambition. Or personal gain.
Mercedes, Boeing, Mitsubishi, Rockefeller. Kennedy, Bush, Chaney. Etc. Oh, and many ‘etc.’ Not you, not me, them.
The ‘them’ that control all.
Sacrifice the masses, name a cause, invoke God, create a demon to slay. Simply for expediency. Or power, politics, profit.
Do you particularly want to kill somebody? Do you really hate some nationality or ethnic group enough to want to kill them and their children? Are they really bothering you? Cannot most people get along if we can agree to not bother each other?
I may covet my neighbor’s possessions, but I don’t want to kill him to get them. And if I were willing to do that, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to share than die? Situation reversed, would it not make sense for me to share rather than to fight and die to keep that which I won’t have if I’m dead?
Is that not the essence of civilization? Cooperation for mutual benefit? To avoid conflict?
Face it: They cause the problems. They who have no patience. They who crave power or wealth. They…who rule. The little folks just want to live and let live, it’s they who have grander ideas and use us to achieve them. And we let them. And we feed them our children’s lives, and our own, so that they might attain their goals.
Jeez, I sound like a Bolshevik. My Dad, somewhat to the Right of Barry Goldwater, must be rolling in his ashes…
This posting started out as a simple pissed off rant about how police tend to rush situations and cause bad endings, but evolved a bit. Rants tend to do that.
But do you see the connection between storming a house to remove a bad guy instead of simply starving him out, and invading a nation instead of essentially doing the same? Or negotiating, more and more? There must often be some way to work things out without slaughter, if the effort is made. What if enough effort is made to work things out and failing that, and it’s a big if, what if people are unwilling to follow the bidding of their masters. ‘What if they had a war and nobody came?’
Attack my house and I’ll fight you. Threaten Enron and, well, hmm. Let me think about it…
I also see a connection to the criticism by the Right of The Obama’s radical idea of actually talking to our adversaries instead of simply trying to bomb them to oblivion.
I’m not stupid, I realize that you simply can’t reason with some people, for all the above reasons. Appeasement is not the answer. But maybe, just maybe, talking a bit, finding out just what the hell is their problem is might be useful. And maybe we can work things out.
If not, we can always bomb them into the Stone Age. Hell, it worked in Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq, right? There’s certainly no reason to change the way we’ve been killing each other for all of Human history. It’s worked just fine so far.
Guess this qualifies as a rant, huh?
Related: Waco Massacre 1985 Philadelphia Gettysburg
