The first ten years of my life I was an only child, but I grew up without a lack of playmates. My mother and her sister had always been very close, and they raised their children together like families are supposed to do. Indeed my boy cousins were like brothers to me, and I called them such. We fought like siblings do, fiercely, but we loved each other just as strongly, even after arguments over who spit on whose Van Halen poster.
Even today I call my first-cousin by the title of brother, and I would do the same to my older cousin if he were still alive. But he is long dead, murdered by the police.
I have strong opinions on things like war, and have never been a fan of fighting at all. I desire peace on earth, and goodwill to all men. Guns honestly scare me, and the thought of taking a person’s life, no matter how evil, causes me to cringe.
But none of this stopped me from joining the military, and making the commitment to fight for my country. Even if it meant to the death. Because although I am anti-war I am realistic about the world in which we live. I know that without our strong military presence the bad people on this planet would destroy everything that I hold dear. I know we need policemen and marines to protect us.
It’s the actions of the good people, with pure motives that keep everything in balance. And that’s who I decided to be when I enlisted. I wanted to fight for freedom, integrity, and the overall good of mankind. Sometimes you must fight, and stand firm for good.
In my thirty-seven years on this planet I have met many wonderful people, but I have also met horrible, evil people. I have looked them in the face.
This world is not bad, but I now realize bad people reside among us, and these are the ones who make it a sad place to live. I’m reminded of a video I once saw of a slaughter house. A blurry man kicked a baby pig over and over, and he seemed almost joyful to hear its pitiful squeals. As I watched I was sickened, but I knew enough of my fellow man to realize that not all people who worked to process animal meat for human consumption were heartless monsters.
There are monsters among us in this world, and I think they gravitate towards jobs where they may practice their evil stealthily, and be more likely accepted despite cruel behavior.
When my eldest, first-cousin, my brother, was in his early twenties his life was cut short. Due to circumstances of his own choosing he found himself drunk in police custody. Due to his state of inebriation and inability to submit completely to authority he was beaten by the officers who had taken him into custody.
He was beaten badly, so badly that when I saw his body later I did not recognize his face. His jaw was not as it should be, and memories of it haunt me still. My mother and his own, well, I can’t imagine the grief they endured, and still do.
While he was wrong, he did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be beaten to death. The policeman who instigated this heinous crime was an evil man, but I do not blame the police. I blame evil.
The police in this world are not bad. People are bad. And sometimes bad people become policemen, just as they become workers in meat processing plants, teachers, military members, and nurses. Evil, bad people practice their poisonous deeds in all vocations, wherever they may cause the most harm.
One thing I have learned thus far in my journey of life is that evil cannot be combated by more evil. It can only be beaten with justice, and good. Killing cops won’t make the bad officers disappear, just as burning a church won’t banish hypocrisy.
If people think that looting and murder will justify wrongs then they are sorely mistaken. Two wrongs have never made a right; they only compound the wrongness. They only multiply the sadness, grief, and indecency of it all.
There’s a right way to do things, and a wrong way. Sometimes we mistakenly believe that if we have been wronged then we have the freedom to do wrong also, but history shows that this will never solve anything. Standing firm for virtues, and what is right will triumph in the end, and while that may sound naively optimistic I do believe it to be true.
My cousin’s murderer lost his position in law enforcement, he suffered ill health, and I would not wish to be where he most likely suffers at this time. And while those of us left alive still grieve my brother’s untimely, and unfair passage from this world, we take peace in the eternity that awaits us all as believers. We know no suffering or evil will be there.
I am troubled by the anger in today’s society towards professions of authority and honor such as law enforcement and the military. As a whole we chastise these individuals, yet celebrate women who “break the internet” with photos of their greased-up, naked bottom. You have to wonder what kind of world we are leaving for our children when policemen are murdered, but teen moms get their own TV show.
This should not be so, and when you find there is no one to protect you from terrorism at your doorstep or looters breaking into the family business I want you to try and call on a reality television star to save you. You might then fondly remember the safety and security the good people in uniform brought to your country. Your free, safe country.
That is all.