Eating my big meal of the day: lunch, in Beaver River, I usually watch a DVD. I miss the buzz, but feel the sharp pain of the anti-coagulants being injected into my arm. I tighten my muscles, look at the offending insect and slowly push down on the now stuck in muscle mosquito with a crushing crunch.
Is there something wrong with me? OK, ask my brother, or my wife, and you might get some laundry list of real, semi-real and imagined faults… but I mean “because I love to kill mosquitoes?”
Trayvon Martin is a mosquito.
To George Martin I actually think Trayvon was more than “mosquito.” I’m sure he imagined he was the kid breaking into the local houses, or worse. But to those who are in love with Stand Your Ground, or loathe the dropped pants, hoodie, look: especially on a young black kid; Trayvon is the mosquito that won’t go away. They try to swat his spirit with claims he loved to fight: though, as far as we know, the school fight he claimed to have won has no hospital records, or assault records that we know of and, if it wasn’t for George and the trial the same folks who try to smear Trayvon might: at best, be defending the fight mentioned in his texts. “Oh, kids have to work these things out themselves,” or “bullying is a normal part of growing up:” because adults can be idiots who don’t see the danger in tolerating what adults should deem intolerable… but make it some black kid meandering home and: well we all know what actually happened… except we really don’t.
And, of course, police in Sanford, simply wanted to wish it all away, but like that mosquito at 2am: it’s not going away.
We will probably never stop attempting to kill all the “mosquitoes” one at a time. Except…
Unless we get all Berlin wall-ish on their asses illegals will still cross the border.
No war on terrorism will ever stop whatever we wish to define as “terrorism” at the moment.
No war will ever stop all evil. In fact there’s a good case for suggesting it creates evil. Whatever tactic the “evil” enemy uses we use to inspire the troops and the populace with, you can be sure by the next time we try to kill off ideas or evil we will eventually adopt: like bombing cities, or killing innocents, such as with drone strikes. I really think the next step is for us to start sending willing soldiers into enemy camps strapped with bombs. We have used dogs in war like that, the next step: human sacrifices just like those we call “terrorists.”
But the mosquitoes live on, breed even faster despite: actually because, of our tactics. Mosquitoes: as far as we know, don’t seek revenge, or justice, because we squished their buds. Maybe they’re better than us, because they only do what they do because they need the next blood meal to feed their babies.
Yet, I am no peacenik. I’m not even anti-death penalty, though I do believe the use of either war, or the death penalty, should be only in extreme, necessary, situations where other avenues have been tried. Funny thing about Neville Chamberlain: to the day Hitler died he felt Neville had gotten the best of him because the deal they had made gave Britain just enough time to ready themselves for the onslaught. And the death penalty should only be used when keeping them in solitary for the rest of their lives would be inhumane, and risking another person being murdered, or an escape, not worth the attempt at being humane.
There are worse things than dying: far worse.
People who stand outside prisons and cheer the demise of a death row prisoner make me sick. They are part of the problem. This is something we shouldn’t have to do: being, one hopes, a sentient species. But, on a rare occasion I fear we must. It’s never something to celebrate. It means we have failed: parents, teachers, law enforcement: all who could have changed the direction this person took that led to this damnable moment. And the idea that that individual is always the only person responsible is also part of the problem.
No one is an island. We all affect each other in the worst, or the best, ways. That doesn’t excuse the actions of the individual, but it excuses no one else as well. It’s true personal responsibility: not the kind that simply washes our hands of those we deem inconvenient.
As to “inconvenient…” I understand the sheer numbers of mosquitoes make killing an occasional a senseless endeavor, just like killing off all illegal immigrants or supposed villains. And the lessons are lost: you wind up on trial in Sanford, or worse yet with a blood thirsty society that attend beheadings as if they were a party… while pickpockets, and worse, use the event to commit crimes that could make them a little shorter too. We cannot kill away our problems: and too often we only make them worse by attempting to do so.
Yet I will continue to enjoy that squish and crunch when I make my infinitesimally tiny dent in the blood sucker population.
But…
We need to rethink our solutions when killing becomes far too easy and acceptable an answer… that is really no answer at all. When a teenage boy and a watch person tango in the worst of ways because of perceived danger, and one winds up dead: something is wrong. We have gone from boxing, to the martial arts, to extreme fighting, to Stand Your Ground being interpreted in all kinds of offensive and dangerous ways because we imagine if we get more violent, nastier, more threatening, evil and things we don’t like will go away… when maybe, like with mosquitoes, we need to start thinking how to drain the swamp, the stagnant water, that attracts them.
If we are to watch for crime: how we watch or approach who we watch needs to be reconsidered. Mental health needs to be addressed. Employers who are like sugar cubes to illegal immigrant roaches need to learn that unless they stop encouraging them their personal business swamp will be drained: permanently. And self defense should never be defined as, “I should be able to follow you, or chase you, and then kill you because I think, maybe, you might be a bad person…” which sometimes goes right back to mental health.
Why?
Because like Steve Martin and John Candy we’re “going in the wrong direction.”
I would add, “You’re going to kill someone,” but…
Too late.
Way the hell too late.
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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