Kill Them All

When a megalomaniac doesn’t like the idea of other groups of people possessing opposing views, he or she might insist the dissidents be silenced with little regard to innocent casualties. “Kill them all!” was a swift and effective command of the Catholic Church during the Crusades for cleansing a geographic area of heretics. Trying to ascertain who might be Catholic or not in a targeted area was simply too time consuming and inefficient, so when the Pope was questioned about whether fellow Catholics might be killed in the attacks, he added, some form of, “God knows who are his,” to the command to kill them all.

Later, the phrase and similar basic idea was adopted by United States military special forces as, “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

Similarly, the royal charge to silence dissidence, “Off with his head,” represents the most effective way to silence someone who is resistant to compliance, especially if the dissident has anything to say about it. This phrase was adopted by popular culture and is demanded by the Queen of Hearts in Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland.

Ever since Cain and Abel, when the human ego feels as though it has been slighted, disrespected, or has suffered an injustice, a swift killing is the most effective method of making things right.

Instantaneous death is admittedly the most effective way to silence someone who doesn’t think or believe like you do.

Your ego (my ego, all of our egos) wants others to think, believe, and feel the way it does, and the unrestrained ego expects and demands compliance. In fact, the unrestricted ego believes sudden death is suitable punishment for anyone (or anything) that gets in its way.

How early in life does this appear in life? Hang out and listen to an active playfield in at any grade school in the USA and you will hear at least one child whose ego has been the victim of an assault utter, “I will kill you,” or alternatively, “I hope you die,” or wishing sudden death visits one or more of his/her classmate(s).

While this may appear to be barbarian and you might like to think that we are too civilized these days to adopt such philosophies, assuming we are far more likely to suggest something more civil, like, “Lock him up and throw away the key,” because that is a far more enlightened response than suggesting someone lop his head off.

Yet, all the assertions of, “I am right,” and, “You are wrong,” and holding onto the expectation that anyone could truly align with someone else’s way of thinking is simply too far from logic to be conceived of. To kill, imprison, brainwash, or otherwise punish someone into compliance is not sustainable.

For instance, we, as a society, are imprisoning Americans at an increasing rate every year. In fact, if things don’t change and we keep incarcerating people at current increasing rates, in the next forty years, you will either be in prison or working for a prison. Unsustainable.

The courts maintain (much like the Pope during the Crusades) spending too much time, money, and effort to sort out the details is far more ineffective than making more rules and erring on the side of punishing innocents. In effect, “Jailing them all,” and let God figure it out.

This more civilized method of keeping our streets clean, and removing the free-thinking, non-compliant, poor, mentally-challenged, or undesirables from society seems to be a solution we all can live with. Or can we?

As the current human evolution continues, the more evolved or enlightened individuals realize that punishing people for not thinking the way we do is not the answer.

What is the answer?