All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.

                                                Henry D. Thoreau

                                Civil Disobedience

                I have a growing concern in my heart that perhaps the life I have been living is not all that I want it to be.  Raised on a steady diet of violence and horror since infancy, I seem to be numb to the saturation of violence that permeates our culture.  Turn on your television.  Go to the movies.  Listen to the radio.  Read the newspaper.  Play a video game.  We are confronted with violent images and content from every direction.  Sometimes it is so subtle that we don't even notice it, like a sub-plot in a TV drama.  But it is there always.  I have found it very entertaining for most of my life.  I love guns fights, street brawls and axe murders.  Nothing like a good headshot caught on tape to really get me excited.  Blood splatters and gore make for great entertainment.  But what kind of effect is this having on all of us?  And what does it have to do with Thoreau?

                I have believed for a long time that violence is an inevitable part of being human.  It is inescapable.  Just look at the world we live in.  It's history and current events are filled with wars, murders and violence.  It is in our natures to kill or be killed.  Look at Iraq.  Look at Sudan.  Look at South America.  Look at the streets of most major US cities.  Look at Israel.  We can trace back our violent history to the beginning of mankind.  We must have a genetic disposition towards violence that propels us to continue using it to resolve our conflicts even in light of the futility and ultimate failure of such acts.  We are either genetically programmed for it or we are too blind to notice that it hasn't really been working out so great up to this point.  We justify our actions under the guise of many different causes.  Religion, justice, morality, freedom, revenge, superiority and (my favorite one) peace have all been used as reasons to wage or engage in wars.  Yet for every action we take along these lines with the goal of eventually leading us to a peaceful existence, it always seems to bring us right back to more violence and more wars.  The chain goes on infinitum.  Eye for an eye, eye for an eye, eye for an eye…and so on.  It is a terrible undertow that flows through our lives dragging us farther into a dark future with no hope for salvation.  We perpetuate this loop of violence with our silence, ignorance and blind eyes.  Looking over my own life, I can see how I have never really gave it much thought about how the ties that bind me to this chain are also some of the very ones I find so entertaining.  My numbed feelings for violence and horror are exactly the kind of attitude needed to allow violence to continue.  If I were to truly see clearly and fully the reality of wars and violence I don't know if I would find the dramatizations, video games and song lyrics as entertaining as I do now. 

                So what does all this have to do with Thoreau statement? 

                Our Declaration of Independence reads

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

However where is the Life, Liberty or pursuit of Happiness for a corpse?  War is nothing more than a three-letter word for mass murder.  It creates piles of dead and ends the lives of millions of every decade.  Our government has been engaged in this murderous act since it's beginning.  Ignoring it's own founding document, it slaughters people daily in Our names.  When we wrote "all men" did we really mean all men or just the American people?  Whether on our shores or foreign soil, all people are endowed with these same God given rights.  We have no more justification in taking their lives than they have of taking ours.  Human equality is not a notion that should only be applied when we deem it an appropriate time to do so.  It exist constantly whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.  Our laws and government may say that it is perfectly within their rights to act this way in our names, but it does not make it right.  There are as many unjust laws that exist, as there are unjust men.  We are not obligated to support a government that engages in actions that we view as immoral and unjust.  It is within our rights to protest and even revolt against such governments.  The next line of the Declaration of Independence reads

                That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

I do not give my consent to the brutality and murders commit by our government.  I cannot support their wars.  I do not want to be part of a society that puts violence on a higher priority than love.

                In recent years it has become clearer to me that the government is more concerned with war and violence than kindness and love.  Look at the debates and rulings on gay marriages.  Here we have a perfect example of the true viewpoint of our country.  We would rather deem it unlawful for two people to join in loving union and companionship, than to stop ourselves from murdering thousands of innocent people.  A true act of love is turned away by our government and lawmakers and replaced with guns and bombs.  45% of the projected federal budget this year will be spent on the military.  This is money that could be used to better our schools, rebuild the southern states that still sit in devastation from the hurricane, lend aid to other less fortunate countries that struggle with disease and famine, fight diseases that promise to kill many more people and many, many other causes which are based on love and tenderness.  But our government and leaders seem to think that we would be better off with using it for killing others.  I protest to my tax dollar being spent in such a fashion.  I do not wish to have my voice added amongst the battle cries of our military. 

                I do not pledge allegiance to the flag of America.  I do not give my support to its government.  I do not recognize the men in office as holding any authority over me.   I revolt against them.  I revolt against the evil perpetrated in my name.  I revolt against the unendurable policies of violence before love.