Desire Armed

I have a lot to say here, but no time to say it.

Suffice to say for now that I am not happy.

If the gun runners (legal or otherwise) weren't doing it then you can all rest assured that the american government (no doubt through various semi-indirect venues) would handle things. After all, we are the biggest? 2nd biggest? arms dealer in the world.

may i take this opportunity to say, in case i havent, guns only purpose is killing (call it defense if you want, you still kill, and since when was one life more valuable than another? no really, i havent been keeping up with the meetings so if things have changed i wouldnt have heard about it) so owning a gun is, well yeah, okay, why not, owning a gun is agreeing to be on board with a gun's purpose no less than owning a tv is being on board with its purpose, or a carton of milk, or a hat.

and ridiculous discussions about our right to purchase things that will most likely kill us or someone else aside, i'm very sorry, very sad to hear the information via this video brandon, but thanks for keeping us up to date.

In case anyone still thinks I'm not too far gone, isnt confounded by my rejection of an arguable amendment right, i also think cops shouldnt have guns.

People doing illegal activities will always have guns. The only way to equal out the violence in a decent way is to have more good people having guns. Evil exists, good exists.

An elderly couple, John and Rosemary, were attending Mass.
About halfway through, Rosemary leaned over and whispered to
John , ' I just let out a long silent fart. What do you think
I should do? ' George replied, ' Put a new battery in your hearing
aid. '

Adam, I can agree with you to an extent, but my jumping off point with your line of thought comes from what I perceive to be your overall stance on violence. Moreover, this is where I start objecting to the video. The video is quite obnoxious (where you are not, Adam) and makes an assumption that I can't tolerate.

That assumption is that if guns were not available, all this violence would just go away. I guess that these gun control advocates believe that with no guns that vicious people wouldn't resort to using knives, rocks, explosives, or worse to inflict death on one another.

Humanity is irreversably violent. We are one of the few, if not only, species that can overcome biological hardwiring in order to kill one another. How unique and fascinating this is!

Animals, specifically mammals, in the wild do everything conceivable in order to avoid having to fight a member of their own species, and even when they do, fighting to kill a challenger rarely happens. Yes, the loser may die from wounds inflicted, but this is usually some time after the initial conflict. I would hypothesize that the reluctance that animals exhibit towards interspecies conflict is an evolutionary mechanism geared towards the survival of the species.

The conclusion that this observation leads me to is that we have stepped away from our animal instincts. Yes, we have free will, but with that we are able to overcome those base instincts, good and bad.

I say all that to say this:

We cannot blanch in the face of our nature. We are violent and savage and will continue to come up with new and interesting ways to destroy one another (Watch an episode of Future Weapons for examples).

We cannot solve the deaths of innocent men, women, and children by simply taking away the instruments of death. If God evaporated all guns today, then tomorrow we'd be seeing people killing one another with sporks. If God took away all the sporks, then we'd use rocks. If God took away all the rocks then we'd use our fists. The point is that this is a slippery slope to walk and if we try to take away the things that we can use to kill one another, pretty soon we'll all be naked amputees.

I'm not saying that we should hand out guns and weapons to everyone. Weapon control is necessary to try to address the SYMPTOMS of the problem, but we'll have to get far more inventive if we want to cure this ailment.

So again, I point to the notion that our instincts make us monsters. As wonderful as it would be to see everyone holding hands and singing songs around a campfire, that will not happen. We wade in a world of blood and death and there is far too much inertia behind the ways of carnage to hope that we can change it. We can try to build levys and fight the flow to no avail or we can move with the tide and become monsters ourselves.

This is humanity's reality. We can try to play a shell game with inarticulate cartoons to make us believe that our problems are elsewhere, but anyone with half a brain should be able to see that our problems come from within.

P.S. Adam: why shouldn't cops have guns? I've heard you say that before but didn't get the chance to talk to you any about it. I'm just curious because I don't see the merit in having a mountain of dead cops here in America.

My Good Friend Karl,

You are, as you often are, correct, and generously so. The video is brimming with hyperbole and sarcasm, a sometimes amusing but all too common response to tragedy; it helps us to not engage the issue in too intimate a way. Also, it is regularly employed by what one, if one were so inclined, might label the more progressive, liberal, left-ish crowd.

I don't blame Oscar Wilde for everyone with half an intellect using that gift to mock and belittle, but it's probably his fault. And I thank you for not finding me obnoxious.

To respond first to the general theme of the first half of your message and to Justin's as well, Mad Zedong said "War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."
I only bring this up for two reasons: first, neither of you remind me of the facist dictator who wholesale slaughtered his people and other people's people so when you start saying the same things I had to make sure it was just coincidence, second, I was thinking of a trip to China and originally I was planning on going along but after noting the resemblance to one of the nation's most famed leaders, well I thought I should extend the invitation. :D Okay, I'm done. See, it's that laughable attempt to skirt issues with humor. Well no more.

You're both right of course, the same way that Mao was right, and he was right. No humor intended here. He stopped war with war and guns are not common parlance in China and this was accomplished with the gun (the tank, the military, but a gun is a metaphor as much as a ruthless killing machine)

However I would argue that he was right because he proved himself right. Being right and being true are not always (it could be argued frequently) the same thing. War can be abolished lots of ways, guns can be done away with via numerous avenues, so it's not true, but it was right. You can both continue to be right about the state of the world. I hope one day to be right as well. I want to be right that most people, given the chance, won't even kill people who might not afford them the same courtesy, and not because they are cowards, but because they are brave. I may not ever be right. Maybe we can both be right. And even if I become right it won't necessarily make it true. Just contextual. Probably.

As for cops with guns, I should elaborate, you are, again, 100% correct. I don't think there should be police at all. Period. This is not because of the inclination towards corruption, abuse of power, racism, brutality, murder or any of the other myriad wrongs all too commonly (hard to argue it's coincidence) associated with our boys in blue (and not just in America, naturally). My reason for not wanting cops to have guns are the same reason I wish no one had guns (the English have been doing all right without firearm toting peace officers, just to say.)

My reason for not wanting police is two fold: one they are soldiers for the citizenry and as such hold complete power over any non-officer, just as a soldier has complete authority over a non-combatant. This point is not, tragically, a debatable one. If a cop tells me to do something and I don't, regardless of what legal precedent may be set up to punish him for it later (a far cry, by the way, from protecting me, since punishment comes after a crime) I have to do it. If I don't I can be a)legally incarcerated for 24 hours without being charged, b)beaten or killed c)known by the rest of the police in the area as a trouble-maker, an upstart, someone to hassle.

These, again, aren't hallucinations, they are facts. Facts experienced on a daily basis by many, many people, hopefully not by any of you. This, of course, is not an attack against the people who become police nor a labeling of any or all police officers, it's just the reality of one person having legal (they are the law, after all and whose word counts for me in the legal system?) and physical (they are combat trained and have a variety of weapons: black jacks, guns, tasers, etc) power over another person.

Reason two is that the mentality that might makes right, tired as it is, that those who don't want to fall in line with be thrown there, that violence and the threat of violence is the best and only solution for violent people, that the horror of incarceration based on rules and rulings that cannot ever hope to be universal or just (as circumstances are regularly extenuating) is the answer for anyone who dissents against those rules, how could I ever promote that kind of madness. That's what it is, I genuinely believe. This doesn't mean there isn't other madness: people who rob, kill and brutalize, rape and victimize other people for terrible reasons or no reason at all, so no one needs to bother belaboring the point that criminals, that darkness exists, I understand. But I don't promote that madness either. I don't promote either. I think both are grieviously backwards ways to look at and approach life. Also, as an aside, those of us who aren't violating other people probably don't need rules to tell us not to, or people to watch over us waiting to punish us. probably.

As a final addition to my un-enlightened, unrealistic world-view I would like to add that many of these ideas of mine, particularly those about guns and their nature and how that's not good, about violence and its madness, come from my unshakable conviction that Christ was absolutely right (and true) in His response to violence and madness, to hate and threats of brutality. I don't really like it, to be honest, I personally think the most efficacious way to address violence is with violence. If you want them to learn don't kill them, but if you want them to always remember cripple them. I believe that is a gratifying and quick way to address the madness of brutality in those people who choose to victimize the weak. But I am also convinced that it is wrong, backwards and ultimately self-defeating. I know that Christ was right, that love, as stupid as that sounds, and it does sound stupid sometimes, is the only means by which a dynamic shift will occur, that the rotten core or simply negatively inclining tendencies of a person or time period can ever embody decency.

I have come to consider this to be a defining characteristic of truth--that despite the fact that it is unpleasent, unpalatable or displeasing it is unavoidable, truth defeats us and in the crushing loss we acknowledge its veracity. That's how I feel about turning the other cheek, grudgingly aquiescent. it's true regardless of how I FEEL about it, and that is a unique mercy, that our feelings don't dictate anything beyond immediate, contextual reality. If, that is, you believe in absolutes.

In closing I would like to gleefully point out that no one who claims to be a devotee of the teachings of, of the man, Christ, can ever promote violence and call it right, good or appropriate because that makes one of you a liar. You can justify it, but you can never, if you mean what you say when you say you love Jesus and his ideas, condone violence as something in keeping with Jesus or anything he stood for. (this you by the way is me as well, its all people who claim to be in a relationship with Christ)

I just wanted to point that out, that there's no way around it, that no arguement levied against this tail of the tirade will change the fact that Christ would never, never did and refuses anyone who claims Him as an intimate the right to do violence to others, to kill and destroy. In fact, we are instructed, not requested, to do the opposite, in the most harrowing of situations. Naturally anyone not making that claim or intersted in making it, does not face this conundrum.

But for those that do, as Bob Dylan said, "let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

When I first watched the video, I didn't think about banning guns at all.

I was still thinking of the second cartoon from this post. This little video was just a brutally honest reminder of how America (whatever America means: government, culture, values, drugs, capitalism, right to bear arms?) is implicated in the violence being seen in Mexico.

More dangerous than bullets are the ways in which we live.

One quick thought, you four pretty well started ran and completed the idea pretty well-

Animals tend to run in packs, you would be wont to find many successful lone rangers in the animalistic world. This being because the pack is a family, led by a leader, an alpha male who, though obviously supreme and willing to defend the title if necessary, executes his role in looking out for the good of the group overall, leading what we would call in a human a pretty selfless life, something Christ seemed to do as adam introduced him as a point in this post: not destroying or needlessly denying the self, but certainly looking after one's group, which he did very well from what i can see. Alpha males do that too, a funny thing that they work the same, so these instincts obviously can work. But only if we have an alpha male, one who works like christ, since he's the one human that seems to have successfully been a person and engage karl's thoughts about animalistic instincts we seem to run from.

Brandon, I didn't mean to implicate that you advocated the banning of guns, though I think it'd be foolish to think that a conversation wouldn't turn to that topic to that considering the slant of the video.

I do agree with you Brandon, America's trend toward rampant consumerism is the root of many problems, even this one. But my response to all this is two fold

1) How can we hold Americans responsible for their overuse of resources?

2) How far should we implicate America, and even hold it responsible, for the problems of other nations?

I have some thoughts on how to answer these questions, but I'm curious to see what others have to say first.

Adam- I believe you have a noble idea and I believe that you see the shortcomings of what you would like to see happen and the sad reality that stares us in the face daily. I too would like to live in a perfect world.

Christ is a good example of moral character and we would be much better off if we could hold his example closer to our hearts. But even Christ was spurred into holy-butt kicking mode and by his doing so, we are given the examples of when the application of force is justified from a Jesus perspective.

Thanks for explaining the gun thing. I think you have a sound idea made invalid in practice only because of the established norm here in the States. I do wonder how Great Britain's policy on no firearms makes for such an efficient crime fighting force, but that warrants less conjecture on my part and more study.

I do think that you are almost too bold in saying that we shouldn't have police at all. Again, we wouldn't need police if the world were perfect and humans were angels. I see your point in giving police the power to oppress others and concede that it inevitably happens. My experience with the police recruitment process has been one that demonstrates clearly that the best men for the job are often looked over in favor of those who are better connected, albeit morally or intellectually retarded.

Even so, this is not grounds on which to abolish law enforcement. I would much rather be oppressed by the forces of law than by the forces of lawlessness. Neither are objectively favorable, but being oppressed by law at least gives one the illusion of safety for the society at large.

Alex- I appreciate the alpha creature metaphor, though I think it loses some validity in some of the details. First is that there are a good number of examples of animals that are viable as singular entities. Most big cats (excluding lions), birds of prey, predatory fish, and a host of scavengers. That doesn't really invalidate any of your points, but I felt that I should point it out.

Second, altruistic behavior of the alpha, if any is exhibited at all, is based on the necessity of appearing dominate. If an alpha of a wolf pack does not lead the hunting charge or fight off interlopers (though solitary combat in this manner between wolf packs is a laughable notion) then the alpha can be perceived by lesser males as weak.

As an aside, the study of altruism is an interesting field and I encourge you to look into it, Alex. I have some books on the shelf that address the topic and will post them for you later.

In short, a creature that demonstrates the qualities of Christ will not become an alpha in any sort of animal structure. Christ did not rise to conflict. He did not demonstrate his power in the least. In the animal world, Jesus would be an omega, if he didn't die of starvation first. And that's all assuming that Jesus existed at all.

On that note I would also disagree with the notion that Christ was the only "successful person." Moreover, I would ask for a definition of what you mean by that because I can interpret that phrase based on my own experiences, which I am sure is a far cry from what you intend.

Alright, I'm down. Christ kicked ass, but I'm not sure the text indicates it was aimed at people. It was aimed at their places of business. It may seem like a cop out (although the untiring mind would think it through and realize that, no it is not) to say I think destroying inanimate things is cool. Particularly when those inanimate objects threaten animate ones.

For example I would be happy to melt down every gun in the world, dismantle every bomb, and if that needs to be interpreted as violent by some, as justification for violence, they are welcome to do so. But again, thinking will allow us to see how dichotomus that is to punching a guy in the face, much less beating him or killing him.

To answer your questions:

1. We don't have to, the economic collapse will do just that. We will all suffer a dramatic decrease in quality of life whether we overconsumed or not but rest assured this collapse is the direct, attached-at-the-hip, result of over consumption of our resources, 70 percent of the world's, and human lives. I'm fairly confident most of us will survive, I hope everyone I know does and is better for it. I could sow when I was six, but I've forgotten how, so it looks like I will have to follow that famous pairing in reverse order.

2. Personal responsibility is inescapable, now or later, and a nation is simple a willing collective of personals. So anything our country is responsible for we all are and as such are and should be responsible. The iraq war is as much my fault as Bush's because I kept paying taxes. That's how the war was able to continue. On a more esoteric level because I bought into the trite shirking of responsibility by blaiming him and his government for these problems I did not actively pursue an alternative to them as my energy was caught up complaining and attacking. Don't get me wrong, that piece of shit and his wicked team of inhumanity laid all the ground work and relished in it, but I helped build on that well-constructed foundation.

But may I respond with a question? Who is we? And what type of holding accountable would we do?

Hey if you do become a cop could you make your first act to be to arrest the head of AIG, then the entire MSNBC? economic analyst team? They are well-known criminals and law-breakers. If you did that, I would never speak out against the police again, because the heart-breaking injustice of watching men who have demolished or healthily dismantled millons of lives laugh on t.v. about how fun it is to be a billionaire after smiling admitting to being theives and breaking numerous laws, well, that would go away. Hell, I'd even head a bakesale for you guys so you could buy more fashionable uniforms.

http://namechk.com/ Very useful website.

I started a smugmug site for my photos, not sure if I want to pay 40 bucks a year though. Flickr really sucks.

http://justinledwards.smugmug.com/

http://justinledwards.smugmug.com/gallery/7807476_SyGdi#505447885_2gKDA

Adam, look deeper into that story of Christ. What does his behavior validate? By living by his example in this particular instance, we can say that we are justified in inflicting violence on inanimate objects so long as they 1) interfere or taint the name/holy places of God and 2) so long as an object does not live up to its God intended purpose (as per the fig tree).

With the improper mindset (or the proper mindset if you are a good fundamentalist), it is not a hard jump to make to justify visiting violence on other humans. Knowing what we know about human behavior, are we really so deluded as to believe that the merchants at the temple just allowed Christ to destroy their wares? Now, I'm against the desecration of holy places, but if I were a merchant with a mortage and a family to feed and some man came in to my place of business and started destroying my wares, I'd be the first in line to beat the crap out of him, son of God or not.

So to think that Christ was not forced to defend himself during his holy crusade that day strikes me as a bit naive. Even using the phrase "defend himself" seems like an abuse of the term as it was Christ who initiated the violence and the merchants would have some right of property to defend their businesses.

Even in your fairly innocent statement that you do not see the violence in melting down all guns and bombs and so on, consider the following implications: in order for this pursuit to retain a nonviolent nature, you have to assume that the owners of those weapons are like-minded to yourself and will gladly surrender their weapons upon your request. Shoot, remember living here in Oklahoma and constantly hearing "If they ever try to take my gol-durn guns, I'ma put a slug through their heads!" I can only imagine that this sentiment is echoed around the world.

So it strikes me that the only true way to accomplish this mission is to take the weapons by force. It's an easy justification to make: in order to create peace, you'd have to wage war first. Since it's for the greater good, and you would be doing God's will, then a little pain and suffering here and now would be acceptable... Right?

But, by the same token, Martin Luther King, Jr. accomplished a beautiful bit of social revolution by pursuing genuine nonresistance. I can't help but wonder if this were anomaly or not, but I feel that it is worth noting.

As for our economic situation, I feel that your responses are accurate Adam. In response to your questions: we are America. We are held responsible by the consequences of our actions, because there cannot be any institution that can hold us accountable without also oppressing us. The two great injustices are that relatively innocent people (people such as myself with limited understanding of and less hand in the current financial market) are going to suffer these consequences and that the most guilty individuals stand a good chance of not being held fully accountable (by that I mean be subject to the natural consequences) for their actions. It sucks, but in the words of Celine Dion "That's the way it is."

Sorry, as a beat cop in OKC, I don't think that I have the jurisdiction, resources, or investigative capactiy to bring those execs in. Me thinks that is the jurisdiction of the IRS or some other financial institution.

It would be prudent and impertinent of me to point out that were something truly holy, something truly representitive (in the sense of being a part of, organically) of God, assuming there is a God and that God is entitled to all the manifold meanings the word God implies and encourages the imagination to pursue, then the defaming of that representitive, the rape of that oragnic part of God, is a crime against all created things. What price is so high that we would not pay it to save protect all mankind, nature, art and history, potential and unborn, yet unmade, unimagined wonders?

It would be prudent and impertinent, but I won't. Instead I will say two things, boring first, interesting second.
1. If you are going to use the text to make the arguement you have room to edit it as you see fit, regardless of how creative your agruement (and it impressed me, very much) is. The text doesn't say Jesus punched anyone so we must assume he didn't. Because our thinking, our entire basis for the discussion is that He did what it is we read and are saying (considering reasons for) He did.
2. I would suggest that Christ's actions were out of love for the people whose wares He laid to waste. Here's why: if you, you Karl, or you anonymous reader, saw a child, a hungry child, a child who needed food, desperately (like our poor merchants who are known, based on records of a historical nature to have in general charged rather untidy sums for religiously affiliated objects, but that aside, our innocent and family rearing friends who needed scratch to buy unleavened bread to feed hungry-eyed children, sexually frustrated wives) this child stabs it's mother with a kitchen knife, once, twice, begins to cut peices of flesh in order to stops its hunger pains, you see this and what do you do? You stop the child, perhaps the mother will live, perhaps the child will see the error of its ways and ask for a sandwich next time, but before any perhaps occurs you stop the child, for love of the child, for love of the mother.

Assuming that my impertinent statement about God being God and being present were theoretically applicable I'm confident the analogy asserts itself. Unspeakable horror is stopped for love of the actor and the acted upon. But (to quell fundamentalist bloodlust) it must be done in a way that loves both agents (aggressor and aggressed) or else it is not what I am talking about at all.

I agree, that assuming peaceful cooperation is problematic, but since you metioned Dr. King I would like to literally apply his example to the issue of disarming the world. If we were to be like King we would walk into a home, take the gun and dismantle it. If we were attacked we would not fight back, and we would not harm anyone physically for the gun, but we would deem to destroy it although it wasn't ours. King's protests caused serious inconvience, upheaval, even chaos. They weren't Neli Young sing-alongs with flowers, they were strategic subversion of daily life. With-out the use of violence against humans or animals. That's a risky cost, walk into a home, steal a gun, ruin it. Do it with risk of harm or murder to my person. It's against the law. You might arrest me if I did it in your non-AIG inclusive jurisdiction :D But as you said, King's example is an anonmaly, but certainly not non-resistant. They resisted to the imprisonment, to the death.

I fear that the financial institutions you mentioned in most imaginable ways (and many beyond my limited capacity for criminal creativity of an economic bent) aided this people who may unjustly escape punishment. Legal punishment, but then if Dr. King taught us anything it is that Law is just a matter of social convienence that has some good use, and many more bad ones. It is only a heart led by conscience and love that makes law plausible, because hearts like those (of Christ of King, presumably) do not need laws. Laws are for punishment, but being imperfect the deciding factor in what is punishable is rarely the conscience or love that makes law possible.

Well, once again our discussion turns from the political to the religious. Oh well, I guess it's really unavoidable between the two of us, Mr. Decaulp. Of course, I would contend that this is because religion, or metaphysics, whatever, is of ultimate importance and most issues can trace themselves back to these core perspectives.

In any event, here we go.

I would agree with your opening paragraph if I believed, or even saw evidence to support the notion that God was a deity that indeed embodied purity or an objective notion of "good." But if I suscribe to your opening poetics, then I would have to agree with you. There is no price that any reasonable, sane person would not pay to keep these corporeal manifestations of the holy sacred. I mean, if I could boil the essence of God into a building, or place, or even a person, I don't think there would be anything I wouldn't do to keep such an entity safe and unmolested. With such an objective physical expression of the divine, I could even make qualifying statements about other people who didn't quite see the divine beauty of that entity. Heck, I might even be entitled to perserving the divine against the unbelievers.

Sarcastic commentary aside, my point stands from a humanitarian perspective. We have to decide which entity we love more: God, or humanity? This was the quandry addressed by Jesus. I think he answered it as best as possible.

I recognize that the Bible doesn't explicitly state many things. It doesn't explicitly state Jesus' growth and development for, what, 20 years? Does that mean that Jesus just dissapeared for that time period and then showed up, ripe for human sacrifice at the age of 30?

We are both possessed of good reasoning capabilities and we should use them. I'm not pushing my hypothesis out as if it is truth; that's something that I'm never going to do. All I'm looking at is reasonable human behavior.

You raise an interesting second point. So, as long as I am acting out of love, then I can do no wrong? Isn't there some saying about a road going to hell called "good intentions?" Just a problem I see in your reasoning here. How can you qualify the conditions of action under the motivation of love?

In the example of the child: were I to observe such an act, I wouldn't stop the child for love for it, I would stop it because stabbing people is wrong. Love, to me, indicates a level of familiarity. I can't feel love for strangers, but I can feel a need to protect them because of a common sense of dignity.

I would line up for a cause that could disarm and de-violentize (is that even a word? Can I play the Shakespeare card here?) the world. But the paradigm shift necessary to make it work would have to be 100% global. Anything else gives liscense for the violent population to oppress the pacifists.

I disagree with your notion of the law. The law isn't just a matter of convenience, it's a matter of figuring out what the flesh and blood of society consists of. Law is the skeleton of a society and, as such, cannot hold on to any romantic notions or emotions. Love is great and necessary, but stands in a stark comparison to the animalistic nature of humanity.

Finally some meat and potatoes, although i love green peas and rolls deeply.

I would contend that to love God and love Humnanity are ultimately the same thing, but not in a limited one replaces the other way; that is the willful simpleton's escape from the responsibility of thinking for once and then acting in accord.
Love is a dynamic not a hair gel, it isn't applied it is employed the way that physics is emploed: a constant reality that we can choose to interact with passively (and thus purposelessly) or actively (and thus with purpose). To love God one must love people, to love people one must love oneself, and to love oneself one must love others and God, simultaneously. Constantly. I believe this. There is no choice in the sense of picking one, there are no favorites. We either act out of love or not, and of course, as any honest assessment of any worthwhile idea will reveal, a hard and fast rule cannot be applied, people must choose in every situation, must judge for themselves, must discern what is best, what is loving. Naturally this is not a call for subjectivity because then all hope for an absolute is dissolved. It merely acknoweldges the complexity of real life: love/deceny/good are not stock terms, they are workking realities, they are cause and effect and they have to grow and change like all living, real things, always do. All our stupid rules and inflexibility affords us is an ineffective way to hide from real life, boths its beauty and its horrors.

Bringing us to law. There is no hope in law, how could there be. By your own volition you have destroyed law and though I am standing in attendence at its funeral I can't bring myself to weep. You asked how can an act be qualified under love, but in the place of love any term could be inserted, then you told me you would stop a canabalistic child because its act was wrong. What's wrong? Where's your standard? An arbitrary law in an arbitrary geo-political sphere? what if you were an officer, or civil-minded civilian in Iran where homosexuals caught in the act are murdered, by law? If law is your standard then you have your answer. If law is not your standard than you need one. If being humanitarian is your standard then you would be hard pressed to ever take life, murders and rapists, war criminals and psychopaths possibly restrained but never robbed of the highest value of humanity. If personal conviction is your standard then you invite true chaos.

I await your answer, as my question is neither loaded nor leading, simply posed. And I will leave you with a thought I am thinking, that Jung graciously shared with the world and Alan Moore re-introduced in with Rorscharch

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." --C.G. Jung

who makes the light?

I find myself nodding along, complacent to the definition you have set forth. My concern, though, is that your observation of the tenebrous notion of love is still so abstract that I may as well lump it into the same category as God. You are asking to me believe that both the Chicken, the Egg, and a third essence must have existed all at the same time. Your language qualifies love as the greatest human virtue, yet it appears by your own admission to be a complex yet subjective item. Admitting that subjectivity should be avoided for fear of eradicating absolutes, yet admitting that the subjective is somehow more real than the absolute strikes me oddly.

Love, any real definition of love anyway, is a difficult topic. I've tried to tackle it myself and have failed miserably so I am happy to see another pilgrim trying to grasp at the notion. I begin to believe that love is not something I can grasp, but instead would have to pose as a string of quantum mechanics. I say this in only half jest.

I would address my own hang-up with your definition Adam, returning to the notion of the Simultaneous Loving Act. I could try to set up my straw man by stating that by including a statement to the effect of "loving God is necessary" that you exclude large groups of people from participating in love. However, I believe that you hold a truly transcendent God as centerpiece to this equation. Unless I've completely misread you in the past, sir.

Instead, I look to the act of presenting a loving act. It is my experience that love, like any other sensation or skill, is one that is acquired through practice. Necessarily, there must be a process to it. We can accept your perspective of love, Adam, but I don't feel that it helps anyone come to better grips about HOW to actually love. You instead kind of shrug, leaving this as a complex issue.

I'm reminded of my favorite comic, Calvin and Hobbes, when Calvin asks his dad where wind comes from. Dad responds that wind is from trees sneezing. Calvin asks if that's true and dad responds that the truth is really boring and complicated. Next panel shows Calvin walking against hard wind with Hobbes and Calvin remarking at how hard the trees must be sneezing. Your definition of love is scintillating because it marks a spot where we can genuinely hold hope in our heart, just as the notion of sneezing trees makes us smile because it reminds us of life and childhood. Still, we need to hit the core, we need to find our dirty, useless definitions in order for there to be any benefit in trying to understand the world around us.

These are just my surface reactions. Hitting paydirt on a topic such as this excites me and I'm afraid my fingers type faster than my reason analyzes. You'll have to forgive me if I end up posting more on this later.

In response to your question: there is hope in law because what else is the alternative? Utopia is a fairytale and if heaven exists, we're going to have to die to reach it. As it is, people die daily in an effort to perserve the status quo of society, to keep a lid on the elemental forces of human nature.

I asked about qualification only because your definition of love rang of subjectivity. I make no qualms that sometimes there are unjust happenings in the world, even by those who swear to uphold justice, but at the very least society has attempted to create a code of justice that is fair.

You bait me into responding on a situation of law that is divorced from cultural context. You appeal to my sense of western, American justice that has labeled such actions as hate crimes. Adam, you've espoused many times the presence of cultural subjectivity so I hardly feel that it is fair to ask me to defend my culture's customs in light of a completely different cultural backdrop.

I instead will move to a notion that could be considered global in its ethical approach, though it obviously leans a little to the west. Even so, I feel that it is an excellent backdrop to anyone's moral paradigm. I present Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

(I realize that I just threw a quote out there to support my own ideas, a personal pet peeve, but I happen to like the groundwork of Kant's moral philosophy and rather than rehash all his points in my words, it's just easier to throw out this little gem.)

Eating one's mother, devoid of our reasoning surrounding the act, is not a sustainable practice biologically speaking. Eventually the human race would die out. Moreover, behavior in this vein does not treat the recipient of such action as an end unto themselves, another cornerstone of Kant's moral philosophy. Therefore, when we see this behavior happening, it is in our responsibility to protect the human race and allow the woman to restore autonomy to herself. We could further attach the notions of love for the mother/child, but they are a mere afterthought.

The waters become muddied if the application of lethal force becomes necessary to protect another life. The imperative works for a lot of apparently black and white situations, albiet shifting our focus slightly to a broader spectrum that culture-centric views. It is less effective in perscribing courses of action for euthanasia, capital punishment, and the like. I can delve into these topics, feeling free to add my own voice to these ideas at a later time if it helps our conversation. For the time being I believe I have answered your prompt adequately.

Who makes the light? We do. And it matters little for our piddling motivations in doing so.