It occurred to me today that you have to be careful what you wish for.

SECTION 1:

I just read a story on a local news website about a boy who set fire to a bucket with kittens inside of it.

Yesterday, I watched a video of a police officer with his knee on a man’s neck while the man called out for help. The man later died.

Last month, I watched a video where two men chased down a third man while he was jogging and shot him to death.

And the problem with this list is, I could keep adding to it without end. They never stop coming, these stories that I’ve heard about people who seem to be unhinged, lately. I’m sure that you’ve seen the videos and you’ve heard the stories and you’ve wondered WHAT THE HELL is the world coming to?

SECTION 2:

Video games where our children kill each other for sport.

Abortions performed in the name of convenience.

Our elderly thrown away like a used paper cup.

Middle-aged balding fat white guys shooting rare animals on foreign continents in the name of sport.

Human trafficking on a global scale, people being bought and sold.

Animals bred to be vicious killers so they can be forced to fight other animals.

And on, and on, and on.

But, here’s the deal: if you find yourself disturbed by anything in Section 1, but you would condone anything in Section 2, I’ve got some news for you…

We got what we wanted. We brought this on ourselves.

We should have been more careful with what we’ve been wishing for.

Our American society does not value life, and you might be part of the problem.

If we are to undervalue any life, then we undervalue all life. If you don’t like that stance, chances are you don’t like that stance because you have some particular type of life that you’ve decided to not value and I’ve offended you.

Too. damn. bad.

Here’s the bottom line: we should either decide that we are going to stop all of the fake outrage, when our society and its members do something to demonstrate their lack of value for life, or we need to start to walk the road that heads back to the place where we value life.

All life.

The irate new broadcaster who is angered by the school shooting, who put his elderly mother in a nursing home last month just so he wouldn’t have to deal with her any longer –> his outrage is fake.

The PETA activist with three abortions in her past –> her outrage is fake.

The pro-life demonstrator who bets on dog fights on Saturday nights –> his outrage is fake.

The father who plays video games with his kids where they team-up to shoot the enemy with sniper rifles, who then rails against human trafficking at church on Sundays –> his outrage is fake.

STOP THE HYPOCRISY!!

* * *

Of course, the outrage is easier than the change that will be necessary for us to get to the place that there doesn’t need to be any more outrage. Yes, all of that stuff in Section 1 is horrible stuff, and any human with a soul would be mortified by those stories, but that’s the easy thing to do.

Somehow, I’m thinking that this isn’t going to be one of those easy fixes.

So, how do we stop the devaluing of life? We are probably going to have to start out with some baby steps. Maybe those baby steps could lead us to bigger steps one day, but at this point, I’d take any progress.

Maybe the baby step should be to value all human life, or maybe the baby step could be to end all animal abuse, or maybe the baby step could be to stop the sale of people. We’ve got to start somewhere. Our failure to do anything, just because we are daunted by the enormity of the task, doesn’t excuse us.

No one travels a thousand miles without taking some small steps. When you are in a hole, step one is to stop digging.

* * *

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be an extremist. I’m not opposed to travel by car because of all of the air-born insects that are savagely slaughtered by automobiles every moment of every day. I am still going to smack that mosquito on my arm at the campfire even though that mosquito is just trying to feed her kids. I still set mouse traps in the opening between my kitchen cabinets and my stove because I can’t have that going on in the same place where I prepare my dinner.

And perhaps, that pegs me as just another hypocrite.

But, we have to start drawing some lines in the sand. We have to start by making some decisions about the behaviors that we aren’t going to tolerate any more. And, let’s not put this in the hands of the politicians, shall we? They seems to be mostly incapable these days and they haven’t been the source of real change in our society at any point anyway.

This is going to have to be something that each of us decides to stand against.