Friday, October 21, 2011

Another One Bites the Dust


He's dead, and there's still a lot of confusion. After all these years, nobody can agree on how to spell his name.

Qaddafi, Gadhafi, Gaddafi, Kadafi. How can we possibly know the truth about how he died when nobody can figure out what his name is. No matter. At least we can be sure the murderous megalomaniac died certain that whatever he had done in his life was justified. "Do you know right from wrong?" was his parting question. I, for one, can never get enough self righteousness.

The whole chase into a rat infested drain pipe was unseemly though, and it's difficult for someone like me (who finds it hard to step on a spider) to watch the up close and personal violence, no matter how well deserved. I wonder if I would have enjoyed the spectacle more if I had lost someone over Lockerbie, or anywhere else the monster's handiwork had been carried out. I wonder how far my humanity extends, whether I could ever reach the point where I could kill someone with my own hands. Or watch it with glee.

Frankly, the brutality scares me. Raised on a steady diet of oppression, violence, and pure evil, Qaddafi's (or however you spell it) blood thirsty killers are now poised to take his place. It makes the sniping at the Republican debates seem rather benign, to say the least. All of a sudden, just being vapid and rude and completely full of shit doesn't seem so bad. Not that I would ever actually vote Republican.

Who knows. Maybe nature will triumph over nurture, and the innate humanity that has kept our species at the top of the food chain will overcome baser instincts. But rage and hatred and gruesome violence are powerful habits, and habits -- particularly bad ones -- are hard to break.

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