a dark night indeed

[Note:  Today is the 1st of 10 in our annual Guest Blogger Series.  Remember:  the Intramuralist may or may not agree with the opinion(s) expressed.  The goal is respectful articulation.  Enjoy!  And remember… I’ll be back.]

 

Yet another senseless act of violence.  As most know by now, an armed gunman entered a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado during the midnight premier showing of The Dark Knight Rises. The perpetrator, whose name will not be made even slightly more famous by repeating it here, just started shooting people. Initial reports suggest that he called himself “The Joker” and may have been mimicking aspects of the Batman story, such as Bruce Wayne becoming a crime fighter after witnessing his parents being killed leaving a movie theater.

 

Any comment on the incident must first pause in respect to the victims, the 12 people killed and 58 injured. These people were someone’s parent, someone’s spouse, someone’s child. Our prayers are with them and those near to them left without someone important in the lives for no reason whatsoever.

 

A public defender has been appointed to represent the shooter. Depending on one’s view of capital punishment, I’m sure most hope the man is either put away forever or is sentenced to the same fate which he inflicted upon others.

 

But I have a question. Where is the ACLU now? Where are all the people who say we have no right to impose our morals on others?

 

Because I’ll tell you:  this type of radical behavior is the natural consequence of a society that refuses to acknowledge an absolute set of rights and wrongs.

 

Most of you shouldn’t even be bothered by the killing.  According to pollster George Barna, 78% of you believe that moral absolutes do not exist. If you are in that majority, then on what basis would you judge this person’s actions to be wrong? Aren’t you trying to impose your sense of morality on him?

 

Sure, the example is extreme, but the fact is that if you don’t agree to an absolute standard of right and wrong, you simply have no other place to draw the line, no basis for saying here’s where subversive behavior has to stop, beyond which it cannot cross….

 

  • As soon as you say it’s ok to put sex and violence on TV… it’s eventually going to become pornography… and as in Colorado, people are going to start acting these things out.

 

  • As soon as you say it’s ok for a man to marry a man… then someone is going to want to marry their student… or their child… or their pet.

 

  • As soon as you say it’s ok to end a life before it leaves the womb… it’s no stretch at all to start knocking off the elderly once their medical costs start busting the Obamacare budget… or to walk into a theater and start shooting people for entertainment.

 

If you have any sense of horror at the Colorado shooting, and I know virtually all do, then you’ve got to reconsider your position on moral absolutes. Teaching people that they define their own sense of right and wrong invariably leads to behavior at the extremes. I respect your right to believe whatever you wish, but the only way back to sanity is to acknowledge that right and wrong exist.

 

“Destroy a nation’s morality, and it will fall in your lap like ripe fruit from a tree.” – Vladimir Lenin

 

Respectfully,

Mike

 

 

[Intramuralist Note:  Mike and I go way back.  Boasting an impressive professional resume — along with a humbled heart to back it up — Mike has always made me think…  still again today…]

2 Replies to “a dark night indeed”

  1. Made me think….. incest might not be taboo after a while either. Wow.

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