August 28th, 2009

Have you ever really thought about what it means to call for and/or carry out execution of political foes? I mean, imagine it: Killing someone for their thoughts ... for their values.

There's no "efficiency" in it, no logic, no true expediency. It's pure emotion. Violence on the highest and worst order—only presented as civilized, but worse even than two animals in the sierra fighting to the death over a bone or some territory. The ultimate physical statement: End of a life, and we humans call for it—and do it—for ideological reasons. Not food, not territory.

Oh, sure, I've heard the argument that we feel threatened by people with opposing religious, political, and value systems because they represent a competition—a territorial dispute, or perhaps rivalry over finite resources. But that argument defeats itself as soon as one stops to reason it out: It boils down to: "I am going to kill you because your politics represent competition at the water hole." It's nonsense.

We may certainly feel a threat, but it's our emotions bubbling and roiling around in our heads that are calling for the killing. It's a mix of emotions and half-used intellect that gets us into trouble. Our logic carries us to: These people are different from us in some non-physical way. Then our emotion takes over and perceives it as: These people are different and dangerous ... must kill them.

Entire governments round up, torture, and kill people based on religious, ideological, and political grounds. All the words in the world to justify those actions are just that—justifications (and usually after the fact). It's really animal instinct. Fear. It's another topic altogether, but usually ignorance-based fears at that.

What good are our words when we still resort to killing?

And, frankly, what good is our intellect if it's ultimately used to extend our physical selves to kill more people faster?

We use our brains to get us to the point where we perceive our differences, and then with our emotions we just slaughter ourselves wholesale with our cleverly-designed machines.

I just hate it.

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