Violence Against Children

What The Taliban have allegedly* done to a fourteen-year old school girl defying their edict that girls not attend school.. is terrible, and morally groundless. However, I encourage all who care about true freedom and dignity, a superior morality and intelligence, human rights and decency, to realize that though it is natural to make a special distinction in this case because the victim is a child, it is this paradigm of distinctions that allows us to justify cruelty “across the board”, as it were. For why (and the suggestion is, by this distinction) is it that it would it be “okay” to target with less egregious culpability, someone who is male, and/or over the ages of say, 18 or 21; because we engage in horrific forms of violence ourselves?

We must voraciously and without exception BAN ALL FORMS OF JUSTIFIED VIOLENCE, even against tyrants, if we are to stop this kind of thing. When we arrest the perpetrators of such violence, the way we treat them directly and unequivocally goes hand-in-hand with this kind of barbarism.

Either you are for violence or against it. THIS is the only way to stop all of it, eventually. For if violence is justified in one culture, and in one particular situation, it will be justified in another, in other situations–in ways abhorrent to outsiders, but justifiable to its perpetrators and their sense of society and survival. However, it is still violence in all forms. Until we are honest enough, “man” enough, courageous enough, and serious enough to admit this, and we are ready to condemn violence everywhere, we can stop it only here and there, and thus not at all.

Finally, I will say that the only time it is understandable to use violence is in a situation of clear, present, and direct threat to oneself and one’s people nearby; no pre-emptive violence can be justified, otherwise, The Taliban will justify killing a fourteen-year-old girl just as we justify drone strikes, shock and awe cluster-bombs, grenades, napalm, and atomic weapons doing the exact same thing (and of course, we absolutley have).
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* I question this only because I know my government and other governments use conspiracy and lies, covert action and atrocity, when it deems necessary.

This Essay is in response to: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/09/162573135/taliban-say-they-shot-14-year-old-pakistani-girl-who-exposed-their-cruelty

How to Live

BrilliantThe best way I have found–to live, is lovingly; loving myself, and loving others… moment to moment.

You will get angry at yourself and others, from to time–despite trying to live this way, but as long as you ‘call yourself back to the path of love’, you will be better off than if you don’t.

What does loving yourself and others mean? Well, we can start by understanding that we are human and that means we are very special, and so should be treated very specially, treating others specially, too; as potentially brilliant and exceptionally capable creatures, as our species has been been proven to be, we shouldn’t take one another for granted or abuse one another out of entitlement, letting our expectations of others exceed the reality of their potential.

Human beings should be revered by each other, as a virtual miracle if billions of years of cosmological evolution, tens of millions of years of biological evolution, and several hundreds of thousands of years of existence of a particular surviving type of human–and as the products of social evolution. We have come a long way! However, we are still the product of society, family, economics, personal health and local conditions. Everyone is doing the best he or she can, until they know otherwise and are able to change and grow to the best of their ability.

Think of it this way. We that are human could have become something else, but we are here–as we are, fortunate, living alongside other highly intelligent mammals; other primates, the dolphins, the whales….

And if you believe in God, then another reason to love and respect yourself and others is, God created that process which resulted in our being here, resulting in a masterpiece.

However great we are in our capacity to love, think, grow, change and create–or to manipulate, control and destroy–and to repairs, these potentials should not be seen as an excuse or a reason for the right to control others–other species or other human beings. This is, however, what we have done and are still doing, and it may yet be the eventual end of us.

Let’s do what we can in our communities to spread respect and love to all.

Gun Control

I had a conversation about gun ownership in America last night with a soldier in Seoul, who is heading to Fort Drum in New York and soon to Afghanistan, probably. He really liked my idea that we need a long, drawn-out psych-evaluation for people who would purchase guns. People can’t get behind the wheel of a car or the yolk of an airplane without a long course of practice and certification–either–so likewise, no one should be handed the right to use a deadly weapon without, say–twice as much time in analysis and learning. Finally, automatic weapons should not be purchase-able by non-military. If we want safeguards protecting us from the chance that the federal government could go mad and mobilize in our towns, we can establish a citizens’ armament which couldn’t be accessed without the coming together of a number of appointed council members who would possess keys in each municipality—to such a locker, like the officers who carry the nuclear-launch keys in a submarine. Guns must otherwise be taken from citizens en masse, or in the case where they are the only protection against thieves and rapists, reduced to the size of small handguns. In such cases, I also recommend ballistic weapons be replaced with non-lethal weapons, like tazers, or something else that could be manufactured. There is no reason to have the power to kill…placed in a citizen’s hand; none; zero. © Copyright Carl Atteniese Jr., 2012, All Rights Reserved.

Fire

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© Copyright Carl Atteniese II, 2012. More art and photography at http://instagram.com/carlatteniese
We are told that to do something the same way again and again despite failure of this way to produce the desired results is one way of defining insanity. I would tend to agree–in particular cases. However, this and all premises are based on the assumptions that 1., we actually think we can determine before-hand what results in the future–all unforeseen and mitigating factors and aspects included–would actually be desirable; and 2., that just because we approach a task the same way, the same results will be arrived at, even with ‘the same’ mitigating conditions (all a matter of measurement accuracy). Both assumptions are–when dealing with multiple unforeseen results of interlocking and relatively predictable or unpredictable factors, in multiple-aspect-oriented events–false. The obvious reason is–human, climactic, geologic, and astronomical events, though all predictable–are not certain. In other words, we never know to a 100% degree of certainty–what is going to happen, even with highly predictable and relatively dependable factors of nature or even with machines.

Finally, in the course of human life and desire-based decisions, we as human beings–always reacting to our environments (inner and outer) change, and may want or react to results of actions and events–differently, in the future. Simply said, we may want different things.

This is why randomness–in taking steps, making choices, taking action–according to the true self, spontaneously–can be preferable to always doing things the same way, even when that way is “successful”.

Finally, doing things–and I’ll spell it out for us, here–the logical, predictable, “certain” way, pursued all the time–leaves little opportunity for serendipity, chance and spontaneity–and those things–I have found, result in the most opportunity and beauty.

© Copyright Carl Atteniese II, 2012 / All rights reserved.
More art and photography at http://instagram.com/carlatteniese