ARE HUMANS REALLY HUMAN?

7-23-13

The Boy Scouts are an odd lot. They provide us with training for young men on the cusp of adulthood; I was one and remember learning about porn, getting a merit badge in carpentry, learning that masturbation is evil and learning to hate overnight camping. Others do better than that but it is clear their outcomes are a mixed bag. Now that a person's sexuality becomes more open, they had a problem with their no-queer policy. Neither a gay boy or scout leader could scout with the rest of the crowd. Recently, they had a meeting to determine if they might change their policy, essentially to get rid of their noxious rules. Brilliantly, they said no. I say “brilliantly” because against all odds, they stuck to their guns. Are they heroes … or what?

They never offered an explanation, but clearly they believe that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexul, transgendered) folk are morally and behaviorally impaired. LGBT folk have always been besmirched with such nonsense and further, the calumnly that they would always try to seduce the innocent into their culture. There are ugly parallels. When eighteen, at school in Florida I tried to visit a schoolmate in the private home where he rented a room. At the door, when I rang the bell, was a truculent woman who refused me admittance because she knew I was Jewish and would steal from her. And surely, African Americans and Latinos belong on the list. Or, the wisdom of the plains: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” There are many more examples around the world but time and space limit me to just a few.

Some people just know the capital T Truth and act on it. They know that those people, whomever, are not properly human. Even our god given constitution defined African-Americans as three-fifths of a white person and so justified slavery. Oh yes, they also quoted the bible as evidence that god was on their side.

Knowing the Truth is half the equation. All one needs to add is rage. Do lynchings come to mind? How about killing abortion doctors? How about, as in Norway killing people because the Muslims were infiltrating Norwegian society? How about Columbine and our latest, the Batman killer.

Make no mistake. Whether or not he is legally insane, he surely has a loose screw. There is no way he could have planned and executed his mayhem without defining people as lesser beings who deserve death. Rage and anger and the freedom to purchase killing devices were all he needed. He even turned his apartment into a killing machine, what a guy.

It is very likely that such people have a brain disorder though I doubt there is yet sufficient evidence to make that point. I knew a man who was convinced that the whole of humanity was divided into two warring camps and he was the only neutral extant. Of course, that made him fair game for anyone so he became violent with anyone he met. Nothing like knowing the Truth … it shall set you free to kill.

It is almost impossible to identify such before their vicious acts, but we surely can make their weapons impossible to get. The NRA says no! What do we say?

If you want to have truck loads of fun

Nothing better than a quick-firing gun

The minute you shoot

It goes rooty-toot-toot

Bodies fall - fewer lives in the sun.