All things aside, I’d perhaps have been willing to hold my nose and cast a ballot for either of these guys if they’d have just been willing to say that they want to scuttle the use of drones for overseas operations. It is undignified and inhumane to kill a man with a machine flown by a fat guy sipping a latte stateside. Truth be told, as I’ve said before, it diminishes us as a people to use such weapons.
(Simon: I’m trying to put this as delicately as I can… How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?
Mal: You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.)
As anyone who knows me is starting to figure out, this entire post was just an excuse for my quarterly posting from Steven Pressfield’s, Gates of Fire:
“Man is weak, greedy, craven, lustful, prey to every species of vice and depravity. He will lie, steal, cheat, murder, melt down the very statues of the gods and coin their gold as money for whores. This is man. This is his nature, as all the poets attest.
Fortunately God in his mercy has provided a counterpoise to our species’ innate depravity. That gift, my young friend, is war.
War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of mean may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and viruous, worthy of honor before the gods.”
I can’t seem to help but think that I’ve addressed this issue of drones before. I recommend Article the Fourth, Section Four.
