How about anotehr heated and extremely controverisal one (I knwo you LOVE these :D) written by urs truly. Am I evil? (from my xanga blog)
United STates is the only country that allows people to defend themslevs using lethal force, and only in some states. Still, many thnk it is wrong. Why?
Considering that the 2 most powerful authorities in western society, which is the Law and God, show us that killing is indeed very justifiable.
The Law shows us that it can exact 'justice'. Sending hundreds of thousadns of soldiers to Europe and the Pacific in world war 2, to vietnam, korea, afganistan, and iraq (twice). We bombed Dresden and Berlin unitl there as nothing left. We dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan, with the resulting cities completely wiped out. We slaughtered millions of Vietnamese in Vietnam War. We brought iraq back to the stone ages...twice. We killed millions of innocent people that were not involved in the war as civilian casualties.
God shows us that he too can kill. Wiping out the people of Sodom, telling the isrealites to 'slay every male by the sword and keep the women, children, livestock for yourselves as plunder.' The justification here is that 1) God created and can take away 2) the peopel he killed deserved it and were protecting his favorite jews from 'evil' people.
These two sources of authority are all that western society looks up to. They have effectively shown us that killing can be right, as long as there is a good justification for it. The inconsisency is that we as individuals are not entitled to that. For instance, if someone kills your mother, you cannot kill him for it (in western societies). An individual killing anoterh individual (or a dozen or so) is considered 'sick' and we generally think of them as insane and monsters. Our government dropping a missile on a city and killing thousands of innocent bystanders is considered 'wrong' by some, but 'ok' by most. God flooding the entire earth and killing every living thing on it besides Noah and his Ark is considered perfectly ok to Christians.
If I told you that I pesonally 'executed in cold blood' 100,000 people, would you think I was a monster? I shot then each in the head with a pistol for 10 months, killing 333 people every day. Would that make youo sick to your stomach and disown me? If I told you that the US army killed 100,000 iraqi civilians from 5 missiles woudl you think the US government was a monster? If you saw that on the news would you thnk about it for maybe 1 minute, and perhaps even pray, but go back to your regular show? If I told you that God killed 100,000 people during teh world wide flood in Noah's time would you think God was evil?
While in absolute moral tems, killing is 'wrong', in practice, we do it. We have always done it. Can you name me 100 out of the 7000 civilized years we have lived as humans, that we didnt kill each other in large numbers? We claim to be so civilized now but tell me...withint the past 50 years, how many peolple have we, as the civilized western society, 'justifiably' kill others on a mass scale?
If I told you that I falsely accused someone of being racist to me when they didnt, would you think I was 'sick'? But if I tol dyou that the US goverment falsely accused Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction, resulting in the slaying of hundreds of thousands of civilians, would you think teh US goverment was 'sick'? The fact is, I will be considered sick whil ethe goverment will be able to get away with it. This is because the ruling authority determines not only what we do, but what we think is acceptbale or not.
I have realized that I am not evil, at least not more evil than the society I live in. Even IF I shot someone for offending me, even IF I falsely accused someone for the purpose of getting them punished. The only reason otehrs may think I am more evil is because the rulign regime (the law and God) arbitrary determined that only they can behave in this way, and not due to my actions per se being any worse. That is, as long as my intent was justifiable in my own eyes, then my intent is not anymore evil than those of the authorities.
