A Question For Both Sides Of The Debate

[The Deacon]

Actually, more than one and not so much questions as points to ponder.

In the end, do you really think it matters whether the child worshiped on Friday at the mosque, Saturday at temple, or Sunday at church? One dead child is one dead child.

In the end, when two men stand in a small, dark room, both with grenades threatening to pull the pin, does it matter who started it? They will both die.

In the end, what matters the arbitrary names we place on the combatants? Phoenicians, Canaanites, Philistines, Israelites, Judeans - different names, different times, same two peoples joined by blood, split by blood.
Hittites, Egyptian, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Seleucid, Roman, Crusader, Ottoman, British, Soviet, American - different empires, same message, setting you one against the other for their own purposes.

With every death, whether from an American 2000 pound laser guided bomb or an Iranian copy of a Soviet Katyusha, one possibility is killed. With every act of savagery, whether begun in Tel Aviv or South Beirut, one future is destroyed. Whether payback for yesterday's assault, or last week's, or six years ago, or six thousand years ago, it only serves as the reason for tomorrow's assault.

And all of us, here, should be ashamed for continuing this ancient acrimony - insulting one another rather than working, as honest brokers, to begin the healing - at least for a while in this conflict which was old when the pyramids were built. Because, until someone, somewhere, sometime admits the possibility that it can end, it will continue - one small, dead child at a time.

[bronxiteforever]

1. I really see this whole thing stemming from our foreign policy.

We castigate and laugh as a country at the UN -but it was founded by one of the greatest american Presidents.
The rethugs totally hate diplomacy because it makes them look weak. (needless to say Bolton is the biggest chicken hawk ever) So we don't engage governments in the ME because of the war on terror.
Then we start wars with countries that did not attack us, wars that break people apart and lend themselves to unspeakable horrors.
I believe that maybe this would have happened with Clinton or Carter but there would have been much less of a chance of it with them as Presidents because they believed in talking. The old saying rings true, a bad peace is better than a good war.
If you believe in violence as "opportunity" and paint the world in black and white only and you don't even talk to your enemies (after all you always talk to your friends), you end up in a spiral of death.
As the Cranberries put it so well you become a Zombie, "you see its not me its not my family in your head"

[Igel]

2. Does it matter to whom?

The universe doesn't care if we live or die. For all our morality, religions, achievements and depravity, in a few billion years we'll be extinct, and the very continental material that we've built on, and the trash we've left in the ocean sediment, will be almost entirely subducted into the mantle, melted, and recycled into rock and more sand and dirt.

Unless we move to other planets. Or the sun goes nova first.

Does it matter to me if it's my kid or somebody else's kid? Yes.

Does it matter to me if it's my nephew or some random Efik's? Sure.

Do I have a preference as to whether it's the kid of a friend or acquaintance versus a complete stranger? Yes.

It may not be right, but that's how tribal species work. Blame evolution.

Tribes can be based on shared genes or shared memes. You don't like the Middle East, blame tribal thinking. It's what makes Jews less concerned, on the whole, over Arab dead than their own dead; and it's what makes Iran support Hezbollah against Israel. And, ultimately, it's what makes me care more about my kid, my nephew, my cousins, my friends, neighbors, compatriots, and pretty much all other humans, in that order.

[eallen]

3. Yes, it matters that children are indoctrinated into religion.

That's what causes this madness to continue, generation after generation after generation. I don't blame one religion any more than the other. Christian children are taught that Jesus is saving only them. Jewish children are taught that God promised them the Holy Land. Muslim children are taught that Allah gave his final prophecy to Mohammed. All create transcendent purpose, ultimate excuse, and recipe for the most senseless kind of war.

The children are innocent. Of course. They do what their parents say, and learn what their priest or rabbi or imam teaches. But I have much less sympathy for anyone who still believes such crap on reaching the age of majority.

:hippie: