A fellow libboblogger by the name of Chet at the Young Americans for Liberty blog (blog.yaliberty.org) commented on the most recent Laurence Vance article, "The Morality of Torture," that got my fingers typing. Specifically, Vance brings up several very interesting points on the difference between hypocritical situational ethics and moral absolutism even in the face of threats or acts of terrorism.
Yet the situation is not so cut-and-dried as either Chet or Vance want to admit: Chet mentions Jesus's commandment to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," and Vance uses a James Payne article entitled "What Do the Terrorists Want" to explain that Osama bin Laden's premeditated attacks on US targets are partially the result of blowback from interventionist foreign policy. Both these points are laudable, but they are misused in their context.
For Jesus, let's not forget, was facing persecution on all sides; both the Pharisaical authority and the (puppet) king of Judea wanted him dead for being, in a manner of speaking, a political insurgent. Jeshua bin Nazaret was attempting to expose the greed and corruption of the Roman Empire who wanted to tax and regulate Judea into submission, and who was turning the Jewish government against the people to achieve its aims. But he was also trying to turn his fellow Jews away from the corruption of the imperialist temple, a position that threatened his movement and his very life so often that he was kicked out of nearly every town he visited--the people were both drawn to his message and threatened by the lethal consequences of going against the powerful Pharisees and Herod Antipas.
Instead of "turning the other cheek," which to my mind sounds more like "please hit the Empire State building this time!", I say look at Matthew 25:35-46, where Jesus points out that those who do good even to the least of mankind do good to Jesus himself; on the other hand, those who do evil to mankind, even to the least member, do evil unto Jesus himself. It is important to recognize that suicide bombers, terrorists, and other wicked folk (rapists, serial murderers, and megalomaniacal tyrants come to mind) think very little of humanity, often de-humanizing innocents as merely targets, collateral damage, or "infidels" not worthy of saving (or involved in some vast conspiracy against the crazy person/group). Like Augustine said, sin is separation; one cannot underestimate the separation that wicked folk will perpetrate to avoid seeing the humanity in their targets--separating themselves and their victims from reality, logic, and humanity.
There is nothing holy in being a suicide bomber--true martyrs like Jesus were horrified at the thought of any more people dying in the name of politics or religion. They offered themselves up as blood sacrifices to appease the mobs, in the hope that through their willing sacrifice the mobs afterwards would calm down and refocus their efforts on reconciliation. Not so with today's suicide bombers, who more resemble IEDs than ancient martyrs. Their goal is to kill innocent people and cause pain, unimaginable pain to both their victims and society abroad. Their goal is separation--the destruction of the fabric of society as people stop being able to trust anything familiar or simple, like airplane passengers, or unattended backpacks (or tourists, for that matter).
To make a long point short, this is all not to say that I disagree with both Chet and Vance; I simply think their points are not thought through to their fullest extent. Of course we must defend ourselves against terrorists; even Jesus made his disciples carry swords with them when he suspected that Judas Iscariot was going to betray him to the Romans. But we're forgetting that WE'RE also terrorists if we believe that these folk are anything less than the wonderful humans Jesus died for. Terrorists don't need torture--they need to be isolated from all the fruits of western labor, so that everyone around them can see just how twisted and wicked their ideologies really are.
Only when we are winning converts (not religious, but economic) with our "evil infidel empire" of good healthcare, quality jobs, education for the poor and ::gasp!:: women, not to mention the decidedly NOT holier-than-thou secular rule of law, then we will see the eventual destruction of terrorism from the inside out. Of course, both commentators are correct in pointing out that this will never happen unless the afflicted areas are allowed freedom from western military intervention. But we cannot simply abandon the Middle East to petty tyrants and madmen--we must encourage peaceful reconciliation through our own sacrifice of hard work, enterprise, and common decency to our fellow man. Whoever will take our goods is our friend; otherwise, Jesus tells us to shake the dust off our sandals and head to the next town.
No comments:
Post a Comment