The Tongue

A blow from a whip raises a welt, but a blow from the tongue smashes bones; Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not as many as by the tongue.  – Sirach 28:17-18

Indeed the question we often face is whether to support those who bring death by the sword or those who merely call the evil wrought by others just and good.  Having said this, there should be some great forthcoming wisdom.  It won’t.  All that will happen is the grand experiment of democracy will continue.  The great relativizing force will continue to push people into the moderate choice of hell.  By forcing a decision, democracy ensures that we don’t get everything that we desire, but democracy most certainly ensures we get what we don’t desire.

Those who would have us choose Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would have us choose candidates that even just recently spat over who was the greater protector of the right to kill life in the womb.  One camp had authorized phone calls to homes claiming that a candidate was ‘soft’ on choice.  Facing such an outrageous action, the candidate outrageously rebuts that he indeed harbors no sympathy for those who would deny the joy and beauty of abortion.  With Republicans we have candidates sparring over who would justify the most human rights abuses Israel could conduct in order to protect and preserve the Jewish race they have priveleged over the Palestinian Christian and Muslim natives.  One candidate even gleefully proposed expelling the Palestinians to Egypt.  We have another candidate making foreign policy based on how well the policy would fit into an alternative version of a Beach Boys’s song, i.e. “Bomb Bomb Bomb/Bomb Bomb Iran.”  How many platitudes to gross injustice must one tolerate from a candidate before one says a candidate is beyond the pale?  Can one at least temper their enthusiasm in the presence of such grossly offensive platitudes?