I'm really reminded of the starfish story.
Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a person going back and forth between the surf's edge and and the beach. Back and forth this person went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide. The man was stuck by the the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the person continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.
As he came up to the person he said, "You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. You can't possibly make a difference." The person looked at the man. He then stooped down and pick up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. He turned back to the man and said, "It sure made a difference to that one!"
I would like to say I am one shy, young girl. But I know I can change things- I can't go out and save the entire world- but I can change what is around me for the better.
At the end of the day, I believe in humans and good winning over. It's just going to take some time and some hard work.
I won't speak for Jamaesi but I am not a pacifist. I believe that there are times when war is necessary because the alternative causes greater harm. (Hitler is the obvious example, but there are others that I believe were "just" wars.) And if I knew with absolute certainty that a person was about to do something that would kill tens/hundreds/thousands of innocent people, would I kill him or her to prevent that? Yes, I probably would (tho I shudder at the thought of ever being faced with that decision). So pacifism is not the issue here, at least not for me. But Cisco, if you knew that the person, the "terrorist", was in a building with a dozen other people who may be innocent, would you blow up that building in order to kill the one person? How would you stop that one heart without hurting other innocent hearts? And if you'd be willing to hurt innocents, how many? At what price? And wouldn't you be the "terrorist" to those other people and the people who love them? Wouldn't they then be justified in trying to kill you?
I am a pacifist- but I know that sometimes force is needed when things get out of hand.
I believe that the terrorists need taken out, be it life in a prison somewhere or killed in the process of taking them down.
But I can't look at the deaths of innocents (the deaths of my people, innocent people!- first my people died in 9/11 and now more of my people are dying in the Middle East), and the lying and the corruption and the torture and believe this is the right way to go about this.
When you want to kill a weed, you don't just rip the leaves off and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. The weed will grow back soon enough. You have to rip it out by the roots. The same thing is here, we are only killing terrorists and then leaving the roots in so it grows back.
So welcome all the more!
