children, mentally ill people, and the old and sick (Laurence Rees, Auschwitz:A New History, 42). They were what we have become, sentimental, and sentimentalism and murder certainly reflect what Percy referred to as “signs of the general derangement of the times” (159). Now we are killing babies, the disabled, and the sick old. We are already subject to it, and it has happened “without anybody seeming to notice anything strange” (Percy, 282) about it.

Tony Blair, after the bombings in July in London, said, “there is no justification” for killing civilians. It

Man kills. And he seems to be good at making it seem sensible. It is uncomfortable to feel that it is part of our nature, but we have been killing for as long as we have drawn breath. From fist to club to arrow to gun to bomb to surgeon’s knife, man has become an accomplished killer. If you believe that we are accidents of biology, then your explanation may be that it is a residual but natural product of our evolution from a reptilian brain to a languaged one. If you believe also that there is a corresponding spiritual evolution that is part of a religious philosophy or tradition that makes you answerable to a God, then you must believe that murder is ultimately consequential. Some believe that the escalation is a condition, a circumstance, of being in a Fallen world. We do not know, but none of it makes sense. I do not understand how it can be sensible for us to ask doctors to kill. Has Hippocrates been dismissed? Do they no longer have to pledge “to do no harm?” It makes no sense that an Eric Rudolph would think that it is okay to kill to stop killing. He said that he was willing to die to stop abortion, but after he was caught, he chose to plead guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty.

We live “in a time of great good and evil,” said Walker Percy, “which nobody understands, where there are many kinds of discourse each of which makes a kind of sense to its own community, but where the communities don’t make sense to each other…. “ (Signposts in a Strange Land, 159). Sense-making is one of those things that I, a worrier and neither philosopher nor writer, tend to notice. Who decided that it was sensible for us to kill disabled babies? When did we decide that it makes sense for us to do what Hitler decreed was the sensible thing for Germany to do in 1939? Some think that it is sensible to have doctors just go ahead and kill them, but I did not notice that we were even doing that, and now in ever greater numbers. And who decided that it was sensible to let the Terry Shiavos of the world starve to death while doctors and her parents are forced to stand by and just watch? There is a disturbing precedent for this sentimental, murderous phenomenon, but it makes no sense that we could possibly be compared to them. The Nazis also killed the disabled children, mentally ill people, and the old and sick (Laurence Rees, Auschwitz:A New History, 42). They were what we have become, sentimental, and sentimentalism and murder certainly reflect what Percy referred to as “signs of the general derangement of the times” (159). Now we are killing babies, the disabled, and the sick old. We are already subject to it, and it has happened “without anybody seeming to notice anything strange” (Percy, 282) about it.

Tony Blair, after the bombings in July in London, said, “there is no justification” for killing civilians. It d

or tradition that makes you answerable to a God, then you must believe that murder is ultimately consequential. Some believe that the escalation is a condition, a circumstance, of being in a Fallen world. We do not know, but none of it makes sense. I do not understand how it can be sensible for us to ask doctors to kill. Has Hippocrates been dismissed? Do they no longer have to pledge “to do no harm?” It makes no sense that an Eric Rudolph would think that it is okay to kill to stop killing. He said that he was willing to die to stop abortion, but after he was caught, he chose to plead guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty.

We live “in a time of great good and evil,” said Walker Percy, “which nobody understands, where there are many kinds of discourse each of which makes a kind of sense to its own community, but where the communities don’t make sense to each other…. “ (Signposts in a Strange Land, 159). Sense-making is one of those things that I, a worrier and neither philosopher nor writer, tend to notice. Who decided that it was sensible for us to kill disabled babies? When did we decide that it makes sense for us to do what Hitler decreed was the sensible thing for Germany to do in 1939? Some think that it is sensible to have doctors just go ahead and kill them, but I did not notice that we were even doing that, and now in ever greater numbers. And who decided that it was sensible to let the Terry Shiavos of the world starve to death while doctors and her parents are forced to stand by and just watch? There is a disturbing precedent for this sentimental, murderous phenomenon, but it makes no sense that we could possibly be compared to them. The Nazis also killed the disabled children, mentally ill people, and the old and sick (Laurence Rees, Auschwitz:A New History, 42). They were what we have become, sentimental, and sentimentalism and murder certainly reflect what Percy referred to as “signs of the general derangement of the times” (159). Now we are killing babies, the disabled, and the sick old. We are already subject to it, and it has happened “without anybody seeming to notice anything strange” (Percy, 282) about it.

Tony Blair, after the bombings in July in London, said, “there is no justification” for killing civilians. It

, he chose to plead guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty.

We live “in a time of great good and evil,” said Walker Percy, “which nobody understands, where there are many kinds of discourse each of which makes a kind of sense to its own community, but where the communities don’t make sense to each other…. “ (Signposts in a Strange Land, 159). Sense-making is one of those things that I, a worrier and neither philosopher nor writer, tend to notice. Who decided that it was sensible for us to kill disabled babies? When did we decide that it makes sense for us to do what Hitler decreed was the sensible thing for Germany to do in 1939? Some think that it is sensible to have doctors just go ahead and kill them, but I did not notice that we were even doing that, and now in ever greater numbers. And who decided that it was sensible to let the Terry Shiavos of the world starve to death while doctors and her parents are forced to stand by and just watch? There is a disturbing precedent for this sentimental, murderous phenomenon, but it makes no sense that we could possibly be compared to them. The Nazis also killed the disabled children, mentally ill people, and the old and sick (Laurence Rees, Auschwitz:A New History, 42). They were what we have become, sentimental, and sentimentalism and murder certainly reflect what Percy referred to as “signs of the general derangement of the times” (159). Now we are killing babies, the disabled, and the sick old. We are already subject to it, and it has happened “without anybody seeming to notice anything strange” (Percy, 282) about it.

Tony Blair, after the bombings in July in London, said, “there is no justification” for killing civilians. It

to do what Hitler decreed was the sensible thing for Germany to do in 1939? Some think that it is sensible to have doctors just go ahead and kill them, but I did not notice that we were even doing that, and now in ever greater numbers. And who decided that it was sensible to let the Terry Shiavos of the world starve to death while doctors and her parents are forced to stand by and just watch? There is a disturbing precedent for this sentimental, murderous phenomenon, but it makes no sense that we could possibly be compared to them. The Nazis also killed the disabled children, mentally ill people, and the old and sick (Laurence Rees, Auschwitz:A New History, 42). They were what we have become, sentimental, and sentimentalism and murder certainly reflect what Percy referred to as “signs of the general derangement of the times” (159). Now we are killing babies, the disabled, and the sick old. We are already subject to it, and it has happened “without anybody seeming to notice anything strange” (Percy, 282) about it.

Tony Blair, after the bombings in July in London, said, “there is no justification” for killing civilians. It

children, mentally ill people, and the old and sick (Laurence Rees, Auschwitz:A New History, 42). They were what we have become, sentimental, and sentimentalism and murder certainly reflect what Percy referred to as “signs of the general derangement of the times” (159). Now we are killing babies, the disabled, and the sick old. We are already subject to it, and it has happened “without anybody seeming to notice anything strange” (Percy, 282) about it.

Tony Blair, after the bombings in July in London, said, “there is no justification” for killing civilians. It doesn’t seem justifiable for Islamists to fly planes into the World Trade Center or blow up civilian busses and trains. It doesn’t make sense that we would use our young men and women to rid Iraq of a tyrant but ignore the tyranny in drought-stricken Africa. It makes sense to some because there is oil in Iraq but just starving children in Africa. Does it make sense that the insurgents who are fighting the new Iraqi regime would employ such tactics as the one reported on by Lt. Colonel Robert Kelley on an MSNBC Hardball special (27 July 2005) called “Boots on the Ground?” He told of a jihadist who threw a stuffed bear full of liquid explosives into the yard of an Iraqi police recruit knowing that his young daughter would go for it. She was burned over sixty per cent of her body. The jihadist believes he is fighting a “holy war,” but how could anyone think they are justified in targeting a child playing in her yard? And this perpetrator may even have small children of his own. Volunteers in the fledgling democracy have to risk their own children to be free? Is that sensible? Who would not capitulate to the threat that their own children may be killed over a democratic ideal? Is that courageous or foolish?

Some think it is sensible to kill to preserve a predetermined quality of life, to preserve an abstract at the expense of actual life. Some agree that America’s youth should be sent to the Middle East to kill and to spill blood for that ideal. Meanwhile, Americans back home spill only beer at tailgate parties and football games while patting themselves on the back for their role as the world’s policeman. I cannot make sense of it. I am surely not competent to decide what “we” should do or not do. But someone did decide for us that we should kill disabled babies? Who? A trusted Andy in a doctor’s uniform? A lawyer for the insurance industry? A sentimental politician? The painful truth is that we are all a bunch of Barneys who don’t know enough about ourselves to decide what is right for someone else, but we capitulate to whatever or whomever makes sense at the time. The German people were subject to a madman’s decree. To whom or what have we been subjected? To whom or what do we point?

I certainly do not know what is right for someone in a drama