Mexico

This would be a great place to hide-out…

I’m feeling very “Clint Eastwood” this week. I am working in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico. The shore here is covered with beach resorts and drunken tourists, but just a few blocks from the beach begins the barren wastelands and desert that covers most of this part of the world. They have horses next to the hotel and I took one for a ride up the beach this afternoon. There was no one on the beach except for me and I could easily believe that it was 150 years ago and that I rode alone along the edge of the desert.

I generally fill the pages of this blog with my perceptions and feelings. I guess those that read it would think me a sensitive and caring kind of guy. I guess that’s true as far as it goes, but we are none of us one-dimensional. I really don’t think of myself as very sensitive. I am very live-and-let-live, but am not tolerant of evil. I could never torture or purposely bring suffering to anyone, but I could kill someone without any moral misgivings (given the right circumstance). Anyone who might deign to do me any harm would be wise to know that I am no Pacifist. I believe that evil should be fought forcefully…There was a movie a few years ago where Samuel Jackson played the father of a 10 year old girl who’d been brutally raped by two evil young men. He took a shotgun and killed them as they were being led from court. The rest of the movie was about the drama of his character being put on trial for the murder of the two rapists. Intellectually, I understand that we have laws and that what the character did in the movie was something that he should have been punished for. I also know that I would have done the same thing as that father. I know it frustrating for all of us when we see evil done to Innocents without any recourse to justice. Sadly, it seems to me that the evil people in this world are even more prone to the murder of random Innocents. I feel that we have become impotent in the face of this new evil.

I am not proposing to put these people to death and would be perfectly happy to see them locked-up for life. I think the real frustration comes from not being able to get our hands on them…of not being able to cleanse the world of their hatred.

How many people in the world have the caricature of Americans as gun-toting Cowboys that are anxious for a fight. We are much more complicated than that and I believe we are a very peaceful people. What sometimes gives us this image abroad is that we see justice as a right…and injustice angers us to the bones. It is comforting to us to think of evil as being something we can isolate (or wipe out). I am a jeans and boots kind of guy and I feel very comfortable here in the old west. I could see myself strapping on a pair of guns and handling evil in the easiest way. I am not a violent person, but if I had a clear shot at: Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden, Idi Amin, or Pol Pot…you can bet that I’d take it.

Best! Norm.