💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › posts › 2025 captured on 2024-08-18 at 22:02:06. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To play Devil’s Advocate a bit, the alternative involves an impartial, functioning justice system. But to be clear, I don’t necessarily disagree with your overall point, although I’d push back a little on the unreliability of media depictions. Not 100%, as I definitely think media narratives are a thing, but I also believe that whole thing about if someone shows you who they are, believe them.
Be careful what you hatefully wish for....
This is the most important bit IMO. We (meaning humans) wildly over-estimate our ability to predict the future, all the more so in such extreme cases. I think often on the scene from *Charlie Wilson’s War* where Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character tells the story of the Zen master:
I also think that acting out of hate is especially dangerous. As MLK once put it:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.