Never bring a knife to a missile fight

When I see stories like this I have to shake my head.  Where do these people come from?  This is the 21st century.  I get the point.  I think.  He’s saying that, in his opinion, Hillary Clinton is a traitor.  And in the day, one that would feature horses and buggies, she might have been tried, convicted and hanged in public.  The National Mall being one option.  Colorful imagery.  But not wise in the 21st century, a period in time not known for our appreciation for context and colorful imagery.

The problem people like this have, and it makes me wonder about their ability to govern, is that he doesn’t seem to get the current conflict.  The rack and thumbscrews are passé.  We don’t physically kill anymore.  In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the movement is to abolish the death penalty altogether.  What we do is destroy the reputation, the character so to speak, of people who run afoul of our modern sensitivities.  We do that by dipping into an arsenal of terms that have a toxic effect whenever they are applied.

Terms like bigot, racist, homophobe, sexist, misogynist; words like hate, inequality, and prejudice are handy as well.  You get one of those hung around your neck, and you might as well pack up and move.  A charge of racist or misogynist could end a career.  You can be fired on the spot.  That’s why I puzzle about which companies out there still practice these things.  In the corporations I’ve worked, retribution is swift and merciless if you’re caught saying something that could fall into these labels.

We have no problem broadening the scope in which we apply these terms.  Simply disagreeing with a policy, or rejecting a moral viewpoint, or challenging an accepted norm of modern society is enough to bring the quick application of these potentially devastating labels onto your head.  No, we don’t put people in the pillory anymore.  But we do hang a sign around their necks and figuratively whip them out of town.

We’re proud of the fact that we no longer tolerate life being taken by the state, or our state representatives and officials for that matter.  And we’re against war as good as always.  We leave the life taking to the individual.  Abortion, assisted suicide, maybe someday euthanasia; lives of the unborn or the socially inconvenient.  For now, those belong to individuals alone – the most important consideration in 21st century America and Western Civilization.  Hangings based on things like treason or other violations against the state went out with the butter churn.

Sure, if we have to drop a few racas and fools to achieve our ends, so be it.  As long as the biological life of human beings isn’t compromised by the state, it’s a tactic we’re more than happy to embrace.  So appealing to imagery that invokes a sense of 19th century justice is like bringing a knife to a missile fight. You’re going to lose every time. You need to know what the modern priorities are, what part of human life is expendable and why, and just how it is we go about making sure that people are kept in line.  If not by attacking the body of a person, then certainly by attacking their heart and soul.