The Killing Fields IV

Trey Smith

So arguing over the rightness or wrongness of the use of drones is meaningless. Drones are not evil; killing is! As long as ordinary people acquiesce in the killing carried out by their governments, if drones aren’t used, some other instruments of murder will be.

Ordinary people living in the West and perhaps everywhere are generally of the opinion that government exists for their benefit and security. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ordinary people exist merely to carry out the aims of governments. Now it is being claimed that the aim of government is to preserve life by killing, and most of us are dumb enough to believe it. How else can you explain the American government’s willingness to send more than 4,000 young Americans to their deaths and the maiming of tens of thousands more to avenge the deaths of fewer than 3,000?
~ from Retributive Warfare: Mistaking Killing and Revenge for Justice by John Kozy ~

This notion that killing is wrong drives a lot of the posts I present to you on this blog. It represents the bankrupt imagination of humankind. Killing is what what we do when we refuse to communicate, negotiate and afford dignity to others. Sometimes we kill in a direct way -- Bang! Bang! You're dead! -- and at other times we kill indirectly through pollution, economic policies, cultural mores and the stifling of creativity.

Laozi realized that there will be some situations in life in which killing is inevitable. When these few situations arise, we need to do what needs to be done and no more. We need to kill as few as possible to remedy the crisis and not to revel in our capacity to kill.

This last lesson has been lost on the leaders of this nation as well as many of its citizens. We are a nation that has embraced the vile concept of overkill. If you kill one of us, we're going to kill 1,000 of yours. If you kill one thousand of us, you're going to pay with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who sort of look like you.

Not only do we kill in a wanton and senseless manner, but we brag about it! We thump our chests at the world. While there is no question in my mind that there are people out there who are determined to terrorize the American populace, the biggest, nastiest and most ruthless terror organization in the world is the USA. We have become the very thing that we SAY we oppose.

Because of my unflinching criticism of my own country, a lot of you may think that making that sort of a declaration is easy for me. It is not. It tears me apart to acknowledge it. It rips at my being that I am a citizen of the greatest threat to world stability and peace.

I have a far different vision for America. My hope is that America can be a leader -- not necessarily the leader -- in a world that values each being and sees the intrinsic worth of all creatures. My vision for America is to be one example of a nation and society that affords justice, respect and devotion to the idea that the peoples of this world can live together peaceably and humbly embrace the diversity that makes each of our lives so rich and worthwhile.

It is a vision that owes much to the Taoist framework, but when all is said and done, it is a vision of my own.

What is yours?