ALF

Okay, how bout this one...Just because you understand evil doesn't mean you can do anything about it; on the contrary. The fact you understand it means you are less capable of doing anything about it. Not unless you can somehow rewire another person's brain. Not unless you can rewire your own brain. And that requires a mighty confidence in your ability to identify it; much less know the proper solution; much less your brain surgery skillz. Ever have the suspicion that the understanding of evil itself could be the only requirement necessary for its perpetuation? That the ability to recognize its source is the very thing that allows us to confuse other things with it, and therefore its primary proponent? Ever feel like all well-intentioned actions, including your own, are possibly contributing to global strife? That even if they could do some good in theory they are misinterpreted as evil? That preventing yourself from evil on the most minute scale is a full time job? Are world leaders susceptible to this? From watching the debates they seem rather confident this sort of thing doesn't bother them. Maybe they know something I don't. Maybe they are made of a finer clay than the rest of us. Like Bono.

I'm certainly thankful they aren't carting my family and friends off to death camps yet. Or released some "good will" virus that kills off everyone without a certain "good person" gene in their particular strand of DNA. What I mean is, I'm glad they aren't significantly impeding my ability to exercise my ability to contribute to the "good" - whatever that means for me (and doesn't harm anyone else). In their attempt to help they take 50 percent of my income. It could very well be these days that the less you accomplish the less damage you have done. What happens when every employee, every business owner, and every politician has some sophisticated ulterior motive dedicated to screwing everyone else to a greater net degree than they are being screwed themselves? What kind of enlightened philosophy is this based on? What the hell is really going on out there? And then people go and join the Animal Liberation Front - is that just a veiled protest against humanity? Is it justified?

Here's what I mean...you work as some well paid grunt consulting a huge American corporation that sells technology to another company that builds special top secret radioactive weapons for Blackwater. At the same time your tax dollars are going over seas to fund the safety of a suicidal hoard of barbarians as a humanitarian cover to secure the oil fields because we can't figure out how to become energy independent.

Are we really so hard up and afraid of "radicals" that we need to play their game by their rules? (Wire tapping, suspension of Habeas Corpus, etc.). What are we afraid of? Do we really think they hate us because we're rich? We (America) must identify with that somehow. We must think if another country were far richer than us that we would be capable of strapping bombs to our chests. I think that's preposterous. Maybe the rabid cut throat politicians who have clawed their way to the top drool over money and power like that, but we certainly don't have such petty, superficial values. Seems to me we're not fighting with our brains as much as our insecurities.