Murder is Not Justice -- It's Murder

        The senseless movie theater shooting tragedy that occurred in Aurora, CO today killing 12 people and injuring 59 more is a shock to us all. These kind of events, public mass murders with no apparent intent behind them, are seeming to increase exponentially in the United States over the last ten years. There has been SIX already this year alone. The myriad reasons for this is a subject for another conversation, though one could safely assert this epidemic certainly seems to be symptomatic of our collected state of mind in modern times.
         Facebook and Twitter are abuzz with sentiments of mourning, anger, loss, sympathy, and unfortunately vengeance -- some want the alleged killer to be shot dead on site. No questioning, no testimony, no learning why or how he did what he did, no habeus corpus and no trial. In other words, they want us to break the laws that govern us in handling this man because he broke the laws that govern us.
Others are already jumping to call for capital punishment against the man, without knowing anything about him or his mental state or the full details of what actually happened behind the scenes. That's as primitive and barbaric as the alleged shooter himself. It still always surprises me when I hear people who appear relatively intelligent and sane speak of it. Killing people who kill to teach that we shouldn't kill. No different than how this mind-bogglingly disturbed psycho in Aurora, CO acted.
        Murder is murder. We are either against murder or not. We can't have it both ways. We've all heard it said that two wrongs don't make a right. Which is why we cannot righteously defend an evolved stance against murder in a humane society while continuing to perpetuate the practice of it "under certain circumstances" (such as for vengeance or anger (terrorist groups like Hezbollah or Hamas), punishment (as in capital punishment), fear of being attacked (ala Israel or the United States), resistance to Democracy (ala Syria's dictatorship), war profiteering or colonialism (name your country...)).
If we believe that all life is sacred and want to teach that to our children and firmly integrate that ideal into the fabric of our society then we need to walk the talk of it with no exceptions. Once and for all we need to learn that we must stop sending mixed messages out into mass consciousness and human society with this "do as I say but not as I do" mentality.

        Today we grieve for the victims and their families in Colorado. Tomorrow and the next day as well. For all the victims' families the grieving will never end... For we the blessed who are still alive, we grieve for all who have been killed by the hands of another all over the world... The Israeli tourists in Bulgaria senselessly killed just two days ago, the 17,000 Syrian civilians who've been killed by their own government, the Iranian and Chinese people murdered by their own government just for speaking up to defend human liberty -- and at the same time ironically all the Iranian scientists who've been assassinated by other countries because they are working for their government's nuclear program, the thousands in Yemen and Pakistan who are being killed everyday by American drone strikes, the unborn babies murdered in utero by the millions in China to uphold their "one child per family" law ....
        Murder unfortunately is all around us. It colors and shapes our world as much as anything else we create as human beings.... Food, art, literature, entertainment, architecture... Murder is right there, standing side by side with the rest of it, living and breathing as part of our daily lives. We use our genius of innovation to invent killing machines and weapons of war just as readily as anything else we invent. And we reward each other for such innovations just as readily. For every iPad there is a stealth bomber. And so it is no wonder that murder is so much a part of our day to day lives.
        Eventually this will not be the case. Our species is rapidly evolving. Some say not. But perhaps it is only they who are not and thus simply aren't seeing it. But I believe in the future of an evolved humankind. Graphed over the last ten thousand years, peering at the history of humankind, it is obvious we are well on our way to an enlightened civilization of caring and compassionate citizenry capable of both survival and love of neighbor simultaneously.
        The slow eradication of the rules and laws that allow for capital punishment, country by country, and in the United States -- State by State, is just one of the proactive measures already being taken that will lead to this inevitable enlightened future. We all long for justice in cases like what we have just witnessed in Aurora, Colorado. But murdering the man is no more justice than whatever justice he himself had in mind when murdering the innocent victims at that movie theater last night. For we can be sure that, like all who take up arms and fire -- whether at people they know or not, he most likely felt compelled by a righteous cause of justice himself. Did he get it? Did he achieve his goal? Or will he spend the next few weeks and months of his life rotting and aching inside from the guilt and regret that haunts us all who bear the burden of a heavy soul after committing any atrocious act?
        Instead of joining him, we would be better off beginning our ascension towards this vision of our continued evolution by setting the example of the enlightened and just society that we all claim to desire so vehemently.

Many other topics come to mind easily as offshoots of this most recent tragedy...
- Was it the new Batman movie that somehow inspired the violence?
- Is it increased violence in public art and entertainment?
- Why Colorado again?
- How have we gotten to the point of six mass public murders in one year in one of the healthiest and richest societies in human history?
- Should American society man up and increase stricter gun controls? Or would that be whimping out and dumbing down?
- Was this whole thing a staged event as some suggest in order to coerce the American people into being more willing to accept stricter gun laws and decrease Second Amendment rights?
- And what about Second Amendment rights? Should they include assault rifles and automatic or semi-automatic weapons?
- Do we all now need to pack a weapon in order to ensure our safety?
- Is there any way to protect ourselves from mad men who abuse the system without limiting those of us who enjoy our Second Amendment rights who would never consider abusing them? As in the old adage "If we outlaw guns, the only people who will have guns will be outlaws."
- Is there something inherently wrong with our American system that is promoting such atrocious acts of violence? Something in our food or water? - - Is it our socio-political system? Has it become so seemingly unfair that it is bringing people to the edge of insanity?

This is the time and this is a record of the time. The saga continues...