We Have Met the Enemy and it Is the Emotional Us...

I'm just a "deviant" I am afraid. I know most people are driven by their emotions. Emotion, the place where most child abuse comes from. Emotion, the place where most spousal abuse comes from. Emotion, the place where most jealousy comes from. Emotion, the place where most wars come from. Emotion, the place where most hatred comes from, irrational hatred of nations, irrational hatred of ethnic groups, irrational hatred of women, irrational hatred of gays and lesbians. Emotion, that which makes some walk into a church on Sunday to kill "liberals". Emotion, that which makes some assassinate abortion providers. Emotion, that which makes some people plant a bomb intended to kill others. I am a "deviant" because I prefer reason to emotion. And while I have probably lost something in choosing reason over emotion I will take the loss because I know what emotion has done over the course of human life and over the course of my human life thus far.

I prefer the reason of reasoned analysis to emotion. I know that violence in its many forms has been around almost as long as humankind. I know that violence and war is the real world's oldest profession. I know that war has beget more war, not less. I know that violence has beget more violence, not less. I know that Israel's policy for forty years or more has been to hit the Palestinians harder than Palestinian "terrorists" hit them. I know that Israel's policy has not led to a diminution of violence in Israel and Palestine over the forty years of Israel's twenty eyes for an eye policy. I know that when demagogues and ideologues counterpoint the peaceful and civilised West with the barbarian and "terrorist" Middle East that the US and Europe they are speaking emotionally and living in a fairy tale world. They are not speaking rationally, factually, historically. I know that so-called peaceful Christians and their secular Western descendents have given us the Crusades (with admittedly a little help from the Muslims; mirror mirror on the wall, who are really alike after all?), the Inquisition, the war of Corporate Bosses on labour and the left, World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the firebombings of civilians in Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo, and the atomic bombing of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I know that Christians and Westerners have raped the so-called Third World of much of its natural resources since the 1800s. I know that the US like the city state empires of Mesopotamia, the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the British Empire before it is an empire. And I know that as an empire we are, understandably, going to alienate a hell of a lot of people out there around the globe because we are an economic, political, and military power with an economic, political, cultural, and military presence around the globe. I know that this comes with the territory people so put away the childish emotional drug like fairy tales you were brought up on, fairy tales that are akin to hallucinations because they imagine, contrary to the empirical evidence, that we Westerners are a peaceful and people who love people people (as long as they look, act, and think like us, of course) who have brought peace, love, and understanding (not to mention LSD) to the world.

Violence, of course, is the same everywhere in every time and in every place. But the violence of blood vengeance never works, whether it is the blood vengeance of violence in Iraq, the blood vengeance violence in Gaza, the blood vengeance violence in Tel Aviv, or the blood vengeance violence in Boston. All the wars and violence of the last thousand years have done nothing to bring about peace on earth, hell peace in the United States. But hey, don't let me stop you from your twenty eyes for an eye blood vengeance fest. The violent blood vengeance that grips the United States in times of national crisis is a lot like what I sometimes see in the Muslim Middle East. "So it goes..."

Speaking of lynch mobs, I think I can just hear the love it or leave it red faced angry emotional bah bahing at the top of the lungs crowd coming after me as I type. What can I say I am a "deviant" who prefers empirical facts over emotion, dispassionate analysis over anger, and hard evidence before I convict anyone of a crime over the loud mouthed vigilante world of a manipulated public screaming for arse kicking and castration. So crucify me. Force me to drink hemlock. Send me to DisneyLand. No, no, please not DisneyLand. In the meantime, excuse me while I get out of Denver. "So it goes..."