Kids Dying

I was listening to an NPR piece the other day and they were discussing a woman in Syria who was trying to flee with her son to someplace, anyplace, with greater safety, especially for the young boy. And it made me think of all the killers in our world and what they are doing when they steal lives. I realize that they don’t think that way, about how they are stealing years of life.  They only think about getting rid of other people with whom they disagree about something, generally about whether they should be controlling the lives of the people they otherwise plan to kill.

Or it could be some dude who walks into a school and takes out his (always a “HIM”) automatic rifle and begins shooting anything moving.  And he doesn’t understand what he is doing, i.e., that he is stealing years of life.  That little 9-year old he just killed was just a piece of human trash in his way. But actually that 9-year old might have been the next Albert Einstein, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  And so, inadvertently, the shooter just eliminated someone who might have been responsible for saving our planet from human extinction.

But, though less lofty, he may instead have just eliminated years of life in which the young person might have played happily with his dog, or joined a basketball team in his high school, or met and married a sweet young thing and then gone on to produce a few little children of his own . . . you know had a LIFE.

So, when Donald Trump separates little kids from their parents, places those kids in a cage in one of his savage concentration camps, and then one or more of the little kids gets sick and dies, Donald Trump has done the same thing as the guy who walked into one of the many schools and shot up the school.   Trump with his policies about stopping immigration is also stealing years of life from various people, including little kids.

I realize that he looks on his policies as stopping people from acting illegally, when they enter the US without proper legal documentations, you know, the way his wife entered the country with her fake credentials.  If only they would act within our laws, their children would remain safe, says he. But would they? Why do families undertake these horrible journeys and try to sneak into this country or simply turn themselves into our authorities to find a safe haven from the murderous thugs ruling their own countries?  They are trying to stay alive, to allow their kids to grow up into civilized human adults. Because the Thugs of the World seem to be in charge in many places around the globe.  And it isn’t just in Mexico, or Salvador. Think Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and on and on. Our globe is filled with murderous thugs, some oriented by religious fervor, but all stimulated by power and/or money. They will kill because they can. And they don’t understand, or simply don’t care, that they are stealing years of lives when they kill.  They are stealing life experiences, which cannot be returned.

See, we seem, all of us, to understand the relative magnitude of what we are doing when we steal money from a bank, or even from someone’s pocketbook.  Or if we break into a shoppe, and steal some silver, or a valued piece of art.  Or if we break into a car, hotwire it and then ride off into the sunset. We intuitively know what we are doing, because society has decreed a valuation system for such things. But when we steal years of life, we have no idea what we are doing.  Sure, I suppose if we knew with certainty that we would be stealing a possible Albert Einstein, we might be able to understand how valuable a loss that might be. But when we steal 20-70 years of an ordinary life, filled with laughter, and tears of joy, we really do not understand that at all.

And so, the idiots in ISIS, or the Taliban, or the drug lords of the world, or the other evildoers simply continue to plot their courses for control of the world at whatever cost might be involved and they do not care what that cost is—because they do not ever really understand what the cost is.

What I see around the world is two powerful motivating forces, both evil. One is money, and one is religion, and they both lead to power and control over the lives of other people.  Neither force is inherently evil at low levels. When someone wants a larger bonus or salary so he can better provide for his family, or when someone decides to pray for a happier life, they aren’t evil. But when those forces grow in scope and the people seeking the expanded scopes are now seeking to control others, then evil begins.  And at some point, the lives of others become irrelevant, and it becomes ok to steal those years of life.  At that stage evil now dominates, and the people in charge no longer understand what they are doing.

We have so many of these people that it beggars belief today.   Certainly Trump and his merry band of compliant thugs symbolizes these forces of money and religion. But Trump is not alone. Think Saudi Arabia, think Russia, think Afghanistan, ISIS everywhere. But also think entities that millions revere, such as the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which has for centuries ignored the devastating effects of its priestly orders on the flock being savagely abused.

Years of Life stolen for so many reasons.  I wonder whether we are headed towards another extinction era, this time of the human race.  Having come into this world during that dark period known as the Great Depression, and having observed World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the seemingly permanent state of war in that region known as the Middle East, and having observed all of the accompanying evils those wars bring out in humanity, I wonder whether we still have room in our existence for goodness and laughter and happiness.  Do we still understand that the baby just coming into the world might be the savior of the world, or simply a human capable of delivering love and happiness?

Are we still capable of looking at someone who is different from us and finding them interesting rather than evil?  Have we forgotten that old saw about “Judge Not Lest Ye be Judged”?  We perhaps need to begin again, to look at other people, young or old, as humans with many years of life experiences ahead of them. And their very existence means that those years belong to them, not to us. And we cannot steal those years, without becoming evil ourselves.  Instead, we should think about how to enrich those years with fruitful, happy experiences—perhaps that is known as education, but even there we need to exercise care.  Humans are scripted throughout their lives, often by parents, but sometimes by other humans with whom they are brought into contact. That scripting can be good or evil. We need to exercise care and even loving care to ensure that our interactions produce positive scripts.

In this divisive world we have been building over many years, we have seemingly forgotten one simple thought. We are all in this world together. How we act determines whether our world will continue, or will disappear. We need to begin thinking folks. Think about peace, about expanding the life experiences of people other than ourselves.  And think about the little ones, and all those years of life ahead for them. How can we help, even in small ways, to make those years happy and fruitful?

Think beyond yourself in other words.   But think.