by MATTHEW HOH
There’s a sickness that
comes with the certainty of those who view the world in so black and white, so
good and bad, so us versus them terms, that killing is often a morally
defensible act. More so, such killing often goes beyond just simple self
defense, to a level of retributive necessity, a preventive act that makes the
act of killing practically an act of altruism. “If I hadn’t killed the bad guy,
the bad guy would have killed other people” so the reasoning goes. The myth of redemptive
violence, is clearly espoused and expressed in our explanations of
American history: we had to kill the British to be free; in America’s majority
Christian religion: Jesus had to die in the most painful way possible, on the
cross, for mankind to be saved; and in the United State’s greatest popular
culture: Luke had to destroy the Death Star to save the galaxy…
