Wednesday, December 16, 2009

SHORT FEATURE: PEACE ON EARTH

You did it, you finally did it, damn you all to hell! You Maniacs! You blew it up! And now the whole world has been left in the stinking paws of a bunch of damned dirty… squirrels? Well, that’s how Hugh Harman and the folks at MGM saw it back in 1939, anyway, when they released this cheery holiday tale about the demise of the entire human race. Hey kids, you better watch out, you better not cry, because you’ll probably all be meeting God before the morning light comes. Merrrrry Christmas!

Oh well, you have to give the little yard rats some credit. At least they picked a Good Book to base their new society’s philosophy on. Gotta love the whole “swords into plowshares” mentality of using the army helmets for habitats. Still, we don’t really need to wait until the vermin rule the world for we humans to learn the same lessons. Under the ‘just war” section of the Catechism it clearly states that “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition… "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation." A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes.” Pondering this point led Pope Benedict to offer his personal thoughts that, even though national defense is a moral imperative, “given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a "just war."

In the end, the best way to avoid the dilemma of such a decision is to (ironically) launch a preemptive attack. You see, a lot of people mistake Christian pacifism like the Pope’s for mere passivism. But as the Catechism explains, “Peace is not merely the absence of war, and it is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between adversaries. Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity. Peace is "the tranquility of order." Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity.” In this mindset, war is actually just a symptom of a much bigger problem. That’s why Jesus didn’t ride into battle brandishing a sword, but rather spent his time curing the sick and feeding the hungry. While there may be, regretfully, times when war is unavoidable, Jesus showed us the face of the real enemy which must be fought every day. So, in this season of Peace on Earth and goodwill towards man, let’s all prepare to go to war, shall we? Let’s keep up the good fight now so that we can avoid as many battlefields as we can, especially that one which leads to the possible dark future where the honneeks inherit the Earth.

(Honneek, by the way, is the word for squirrel in the language of the Delaware tribe. THAT’S how far I’ll go for a bad pun.)

5 comments:

Arkanabar T'verrick Ilarsadin said...

On the other hand, it's clear from things like our dental structure, that we humans are not meant to live by vegetation alone. We may eat more meat than we require, but require some meat, we do.

Niall Mor said...

Drive-by anonymous animal rights spam that doesn't even bother to respond to the post. My, how courageous!

Anyways. I find it interesting and tragically ironic that this cartoon was made in 1939. The horrors of World War I, obviously still fresh in the minds of the filmmakers and their audiences--poison gas, machine gun nests, no man's land--are on full display here. The people of the 1930s were so desperate to avoid a repeat of those events that they ignored or minimized the Nazi threat and practiced a policy of appeasement. They wanted to believe Hitler could be trusted, and they wanted to believe Chamberlain's promise of "peace in our time." Of course the greatest tragedy of World War I and its aftermath was that it did little except practically guarantee World War II.

Sorry if this has turned into a history lesson or a rant, but while I fully agree with the Church's teaching that the horrors of war should be avoided, I don't believe the best way to avoid war is to make nicey-nice with tyrants, dictators, and terrorists. I don't know what this means for America's current military adventures, however. I suppose I'm as conflicted as everyone else.

PaperSmyth said...

Hope your "war" is going well and you have been having a joyous Christmas with your family. Thank you for all that you do through this blog. It is appreciated.

EegahInc said...

Sorry everyone, I'm just finding out that Blogger quit notifying me of comments sometime before Christmas, so I'm just seeing these. Seems like everyone was more than capable of responding to the spam attack. By chance, did anyone make it all the way through the Yourofsky YouTube link he/she left? I couldn't manage it.

PaperSmyth said...

I just ignore the spammers. Usually.

As I have reminded others recently, it is not what you do, it is who(se) you are. Keep the faith, man.