- President Bush has declared National Sanctity of Human
Life Day.
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- I should be forgiven for greeting the news with cynicism,
but at least they included the word "national" in the title.
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- The list of examples demonstrating how life is regarded
by Americans with considerably less than sanctity outside their national
borders is painfully long. There is eloquent testimony in the flesh of
tens of thousands of innocent peasants ripped by metal shards of American
landmines and cluster bombs in a dozen far-off lands.
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- There is America's wanton disregard of Israel's brutal
rule over the Palestinians; its years of wanton disregard of South Africa's
brutal apartheid government; and its years of wanton disregard of official
murder and torture in Chile, in Iran, and in a dozen other lands with governments
bestowed by America's hysterical, witch-hunting interventions.
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- But even that word "national" must be qualified.
Within the sacred precincts of the temple to freedom and human rights itself,
there seems to be some elasticity in the definition of sanctity of life.
I'm sure the fetuses no one wants -- including the anti-abortion fanatics
whose motto might well be, "We jus' helps 'em get born, what happens
after is private 'n' personal!" -- are covered by the joyous national
celebration. I think likely, too, sperm hurt by condoms and stem cells
are included, but just what else is being celebrated remains mysterious.
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- The governor of Illinois seemed to understand the meaning
of the words "sanctity of life" when he commuted the sentences
of more than a hundred and fifty people agonizingly awaiting execution.
His decision came after overwhelming evidence that the death penalty was
administered with about the predictability of a flip of a coin.
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- The President never suffered qualms like that during
his term as governor of Texas. The Texas lethal-injection assembly line
rattled right along with the highest recorded productivity in the nation,
and Mr. Bush was so sure justice was being served that he was moved on
more than one occasion to joke about those waiting to die.
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- I wonder how America's love affair with guns fits in
with the sanctity of life? There's supposed to be about two hundred million
of them, many of them handguns whose only purpose is killing people. Obtaining
a handgun in many parts of America is far easier than getting a pair of
eyeglasses.
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- There's the little matter of the murder rate in America,
the highest in the advanced world, and then there's the infant mortality
rate, also the highest in the advanced world. If there is some way of interpreting
the documented brutality of American police forces as life embracing, it
escapes me.
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- Now we learn from a UPI story that, for the first time
in its murderous history, Israel's intelligence agency Mossad has been
granted permission by an American government to use the land of the free
as one of its human hunting grounds. Potential victims must qualify for
that elusive category, "terrorists." As determined by whom? I
guess it's petty of me to ask such a question when Americans are busy celebrating
the sanctity of life.
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- Just a few days ago, the Sydney Morning Herald reported
Russian officials announcing a new approach to the Chechens described as
"the Israeli way," meaning they intend to start cold-bloodedly
assassinating Chechens who are deemed terrorists. No objections were heard
from the sanctity-of-life President.
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- Bush's CIA recently blew up a car filled with people
in Yemen after its arbitrary determination they were terrorists. It's wonderful
the way these humanistic values are spreading around the planet. As I've
remarked before, that word "terrorist" is taking on exactly the
meaning of Stalin's "wreckers," a word he uttered each time he
wanted to signal comrades that it was time to round up a new batch of victims.
Only now the vicious game is going global.
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- I wonder if Israel's new hunting privileges in America
might be extended to other groups? Perhaps licenses could be sold for hefty
fees or auctioned to the highest bidders. Americans could watch Russians
and Chechens, Spaniards and Basques, Irish and English, Mexicans and aboriginal
people, Pakistanis and Indians, Turks and Kurds, various Afghan tribes,
or Muslim and non-Muslim Nigerians all hunting each other down in their
streets. Now there's an idea for celebrating the second anniversary of
National Sanctity of Life Day.
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- Americans should be proud of the inspiring example they
set for the world. Happy National Sanctity of Human Life Day, America!
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- John Chuckman encourages your comments: <mailto:jchuckman@YellowTimes.org>jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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