VIOLENCE: Only leads one way

I was in the barbershop the other day (yes, I know I don’t have much hair) and this old guy with a retired military ball cap came in, and looked at the TV and said, “I wish someone had shot that Ob… Obama by now.” I was shocked and said “I voted for Obama twice, jobs are up, the stock market is up, I’m doing OK. I love Obama.” He shut up.

Then, the barber and I were talking about the movie American Sniper. It grossed something like $200 million on its first weekend. The movie glorifies violence. The “hero” says that shooting people is “fun.” The motto of the SEALS and the private company the hero started was “violence does solve problems.” Ironically, and biblically, the hero died as a civilian, shot by a wounded warrior at a rifle range where he was trying to help rehabilitate the shooter after his deployment. Yet, the same weekend, another movie extolling a real hero who preached against violence didn’t do anywhere nearly as well.

I see in the papers that police are shooting people all over the country, not just in Spokane and Kootenai counties. At least in our area, the police don’t discriminate. They shoot mentally ill women, dogs, old retired preachers and beat mentally disabled people to death whether the victim is black or white. (Well, Arfee was black.)

Overseas, religious extremists kill people for disrespecting their religion. I think they have the word “respect” confused with the word “fear.”

Any religion, nation, movement or philosophy that depends on violence is a weak movement. Doomed to fail eventually. Haven’t we learned in Korea, Vietnam, etc. that to win a war, we have to have a better idea to offer people, not more guns and bullets. In my experience, violence only leads to more violence. But, as the Pope says, if people are going to breed like rabbits, at least we should recognize guns as an artificial method of postpartum birth control.

Oh, and would the KKK drop some flyers by my house. We are running short of toilet paper for our outhouse.

GARY EDWARDS

Coeur d’Alene