Preface to Beloved of the Earth.
The gun lobby would perhaps ban my poem "Beloved of the Earth" from the internet, but I hope my fellow Americans who cherish most sacredly the Second Amendment will take a moment to understand the consequence of my poem "The Beloved of the Earth." Why would I say such a seemingly self-serving thing? I will tell you why.
Each time you take a life (animal or human) that you at least get it that killing is a desecration which only the animal or human family can condone, maybe even honor, if you the killer understand what we and you lose with the taking of a life. Killing is of consequence to all of us, the human community, we stewards of this our home, the planet Earth.
There is no impermeable barrier, as each of us very well should know, between the right to bear arms and the taking of life by the use of firearms, and the consequences of which I speak. We are too enamored of saying only criminals misuse firearms. The reality is that humans are killers.
Killing is gratuitous, or it is not. A lawman one moment who cherishes the rule of law becomes an enraged killer the next. The person who has killed, the next moment will sometimes, too often, turn the gun on himself. Time must have a stop. And one wanting an exit, turns the firearm on himself.
So the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is not termed with exceptions and allowances, and wisely so. Even the soldier who follows orders has to deal with the personal consequence of the taking of the life of another. His or her humanity is at a risk when following orders. Indeed, every commander understands at his or her own peril that what he asks of his platoon is lawful, or it is not. There will be other occasions of a My Lai Massacre, but my generation has had its moment of horror, of an American leader debased by his act of terrorism and one who about finished the role of America as the noble interloper in Southeast Asia. What would a noble commander have said to his troopers that the cause be advanced? I think I know. Why? Because it is etched onto our hearts every Memorial Day service in remembrance of our honored dead:
"Be fully armed and dangerous, be wary, for much depends on you not firing your weapon. Much also depends on you discharging your weapon to spare the life of your comrade. I too would be a defender such as I would have you to be. Very little depends on you firing to save your own life. Why? Because more than life itself, you treasure honor and the privilege to be of service to your country and not to dishonor it with deeds of infamy. This day if it be your last, die knowing you have the gratitude of your commander and of your country. It is a noble thing, sweet and honorable, to give one's life for one's country!"
Does our language even have a word for the gratuitous killing at My Lai in 1968. Yes, "atrocity." Were most of the deaths perpertrated that day at My Lai acts of terrorism? Yes, they were. Remember though that not all who were at My Lai participated in the unlawful killings of the unarmed, infants, children, women, and elders. The true heroes saw the murder of innocents and they paid the price to bring to light the atrocity which has among others such as the Moro Crater Village Massacre in the Phillipines become the shameful history of this country which we must share and own as surely as the heroics of Valley Forge and Gettysburg.
One of the effects of immorality is the mindless repetition of behaviors of our leaders who take us as a nation down the wrong path. The path to the right leads to villainy in furtherance of a just cause. Even more of consequence, the path to the left leads to furtherance of an unjust cause by perpetration of unjust means to affect that unjust cause. There lies the very meaning of the word "horror" as in the phrase: "the horrors of war." If there be amplified shame in defeat, the shame will not be a consequence of nobility in war, rather utter ignobility in immoral acts to advance an immoral cause.
A nation deserves its defeat that can not serve the greater good for itself and its neighbors and fellow residents of the planet Earth. Yes, the person of conscience with a will must seek to end a war the victor. If you need an example, study history. If wars must be fought though, I for one emphasize that the true crisis of war is the crisis of nobility in executing the war. Yes, I am mindful that foremost in mind is the shrill dictum of militarists and patriots that a war to be fought must be a war to be won." I want to add to the dictum these words: "or one should not have resorted to war in the first place."
What do we make of a high purpose? We do the age old rendition of turning the high purpose into gratuitous killing. We end up saying falsely and ruefully that "Might makes right." Even victors lose all sheen of glory for a battle won by acts of treachery and betrayal of their nobility. For the victor, the perpetration of a criminal and immoral deed, especially one seemingly required of one to prevail, is undone by the truth. No poet can make patriotic such ignoble deeds of a victor. No, the true poet will find another theme: the tragedy of an aspirant of nobility who falls far short of deeds of valor which may have redeemed his ignoble purpose.
In this day and age, the acts of radicalized persons programmed to commit mayhem and homicidal suicide leaves us as a civilized people ready to shorten our personal liberty, our privacy, and our rights. Americans consider the exceptionalism of the insanity of such "heroics" by homicidal suicides. Indeed, suicides so deluded that they would serve a cause they deem noble by committing an atrocity. "What deeply damaged human is this killer who wants to take innocent persons into his enlarged and profaned act of suicide?"
Just wanting a larger stage on which to protest the inequities and injustices which beset an individual does not make one a terrorist. However, by conspiring to take the life of another, leaders of a noble cause debase the cause itself as noble and are traitors to its goals. Terrorist as a word fails of its meaning and usefulness as a label. I would to reserve the label "terrorist" for the evil plotter who turns another human into a programmed killer on a mission. Such a person deserves such a label (being the creator of a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of violence).
Each time you take a life (animal or human) that you at least get it that killing is a desecration which only the animal or human family can condone, maybe even honor, if you the killer understand what we and you lose with the taking of a life. Killing is of consequence to all of us, the human community, we stewards of this our home, the planet Earth.
There is no impermeable barrier, as each of us very well should know, between the right to bear arms and the taking of life by the use of firearms, and the consequences of which I speak. We are too enamored of saying only criminals misuse firearms. The reality is that humans are killers.
Killing is gratuitous, or it is not. A lawman one moment who cherishes the rule of law becomes an enraged killer the next. The person who has killed, the next moment will sometimes, too often, turn the gun on himself. Time must have a stop. And one wanting an exit, turns the firearm on himself.
So the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is not termed with exceptions and allowances, and wisely so. Even the soldier who follows orders has to deal with the personal consequence of the taking of the life of another. His or her humanity is at a risk when following orders. Indeed, every commander understands at his or her own peril that what he asks of his platoon is lawful, or it is not. There will be other occasions of a My Lai Massacre, but my generation has had its moment of horror, of an American leader debased by his act of terrorism and one who about finished the role of America as the noble interloper in Southeast Asia. What would a noble commander have said to his troopers that the cause be advanced? I think I know. Why? Because it is etched onto our hearts every Memorial Day service in remembrance of our honored dead:
"Be fully armed and dangerous, be wary, for much depends on you not firing your weapon. Much also depends on you discharging your weapon to spare the life of your comrade. I too would be a defender such as I would have you to be. Very little depends on you firing to save your own life. Why? Because more than life itself, you treasure honor and the privilege to be of service to your country and not to dishonor it with deeds of infamy. This day if it be your last, die knowing you have the gratitude of your commander and of your country. It is a noble thing, sweet and honorable, to give one's life for one's country!"
Does our language even have a word for the gratuitous killing at My Lai in 1968. Yes, "atrocity." Were most of the deaths perpertrated that day at My Lai acts of terrorism? Yes, they were. Remember though that not all who were at My Lai participated in the unlawful killings of the unarmed, infants, children, women, and elders. The true heroes saw the murder of innocents and they paid the price to bring to light the atrocity which has among others such as the Moro Crater Village Massacre in the Phillipines become the shameful history of this country which we must share and own as surely as the heroics of Valley Forge and Gettysburg.
One of the effects of immorality is the mindless repetition of behaviors of our leaders who take us as a nation down the wrong path. The path to the right leads to villainy in furtherance of a just cause. Even more of consequence, the path to the left leads to furtherance of an unjust cause by perpetration of unjust means to affect that unjust cause. There lies the very meaning of the word "horror" as in the phrase: "the horrors of war." If there be amplified shame in defeat, the shame will not be a consequence of nobility in war, rather utter ignobility in immoral acts to advance an immoral cause.
A nation deserves its defeat that can not serve the greater good for itself and its neighbors and fellow residents of the planet Earth. Yes, the person of conscience with a will must seek to end a war the victor. If you need an example, study history. If wars must be fought though, I for one emphasize that the true crisis of war is the crisis of nobility in executing the war. Yes, I am mindful that foremost in mind is the shrill dictum of militarists and patriots that a war to be fought must be a war to be won." I want to add to the dictum these words: "or one should not have resorted to war in the first place."
What do we make of a high purpose? We do the age old rendition of turning the high purpose into gratuitous killing. We end up saying falsely and ruefully that "Might makes right." Even victors lose all sheen of glory for a battle won by acts of treachery and betrayal of their nobility. For the victor, the perpetration of a criminal and immoral deed, especially one seemingly required of one to prevail, is undone by the truth. No poet can make patriotic such ignoble deeds of a victor. No, the true poet will find another theme: the tragedy of an aspirant of nobility who falls far short of deeds of valor which may have redeemed his ignoble purpose.
In this day and age, the acts of radicalized persons programmed to commit mayhem and homicidal suicide leaves us as a civilized people ready to shorten our personal liberty, our privacy, and our rights. Americans consider the exceptionalism of the insanity of such "heroics" by homicidal suicides. Indeed, suicides so deluded that they would serve a cause they deem noble by committing an atrocity. "What deeply damaged human is this killer who wants to take innocent persons into his enlarged and profaned act of suicide?"
Just wanting a larger stage on which to protest the inequities and injustices which beset an individual does not make one a terrorist. However, by conspiring to take the life of another, leaders of a noble cause debase the cause itself as noble and are traitors to its goals. Terrorist as a word fails of its meaning and usefulness as a label. I would to reserve the label "terrorist" for the evil plotter who turns another human into a programmed killer on a mission. Such a person deserves such a label (being the creator of a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of violence).
The law obviously does not deter sociopaths and psychopaths, and so the law must be for the rest of us to uphold and to cherish.
When a shepherd hunts down a predator of his sheep, he is not into gratuitous killing. He might like our ancestors ask Brother Wolf to forgive him his defense of his livelihood, his sheepfold.
Killing a wolf for your "credentials" as a hunter is actually without nobility (perhaps you have a bounty in mind for Brother Wolf's life). The wolf in its natural state is noble, while you my dear friend, degrade the meaning of the word "hunter" if not the word "human."
You are merely a killer and apparently without remorse.
May God forgive you in your plea for mercy at the hands of the killer who stalks you to the grave, yourself!
I understand that suicide is the outcome esteemed more than hunting itself by gun owners (given statistcs on suicide by gun and the percentage of gun owners who maintain a firearm or an arsenal for purposes other than hunting legally).
What's that about? Some would say "mercy," but I sense that "cowardice" is the fatal flaw for many who take the nearest exit! Our national trauma of gun enhanced violence continues and we dwell too much on death. Sadly, some who suicide, want the evil of gratuitous taking of life to mean some greater evil abides which justifies the taking of the lives of others. Hence, the commandment: thou shalt not kill. Let vengeance be God's.
The Newtown
Endnote by the author: Elsewhere then this posting, I make clear my regard for the piece supplied our American perspective by libertarians (who briefly stand for minimal government and maximization of individual liberty). My emphasis here and elsewhere is on the values clarification with which the egotism of individual liberty by definition fails of any social purpose, a regard for the community. For example, if you condone abortion as a right, very much the same right to kill enshrined in the Second Amendment, this poem "Beloved of the Earth," I optimistically believe, might start you on a journey of gratitude and dismay. The Giver of life is honored and cherished by all who speak of our Mother the Earth. The shadow on us all is the act without mercy or regard for the gift of life.
Originally published to Facebook, January 19, 2013.
Revised Friday, April 19-21, 2013. RJH.
No comments:
Post a Comment