You’ll be relieved to know that I will no longer be harrassing you about morality.  I may harrass you, but not about that.

If you have hung in here this long, you will have already conquered the Big Three: not sinning, what to do with found money, and murder.

There is another consideration, though: what to do if there is no morality?

Priests will tell you this is bad business, and I assume prelates and confessors will as well. I’m not sure what rabbis do on their off-hours, but I highly suspect it is not wishing for all morality to come to an end. Imams? Meh. They’ve shown their stripes.

So what would happen if there is an end to morality?

We need look no further than Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, New Jersey, and that place in Mad Max. You know, that guy from down Under. Great job, pal!

You must be able to defend yourself. What’s-His-Name in Mad Max could — in the movie — but can’t today, because they voluntarily surrendered their guns to the government.

Do not voluntarily surrender your guns to the government.

Have you ever seen a school board meeting, or a Homeowners’ Association, or contact tracers? Imagine them with guns, and you without.

I know the title of this was “The End of Morality,” but you see I am subtly advocating for more. It is a means to a useful end.  As I said only two paragraphs ago, “You must be able to defend yourself.” That is moral. Let’s say a weirdo is approaching with murder in his eyes. Do you want to stop him, or contemplate government programs that may or may not help him? Since you are alive, I assume the former would be your answer.

To conclude: if your government shows no morality, you must.

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Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.

Even the New York Times is reporting this:

US drone strike that Pentagon said killed Kabul suicide bomber actually ‘killed aid worker and seven children who ran to greet him when he arrived home’: Video allegedly shows he filled car with water not explosives
Daily Mail | 10 September 2021 | Keith Griffith

The drone strike that the Pentagon claimed killed an ISIS-K suicide bomber in Kabul actually targeted an aid worker who had filled his car with water jugs, rather than explosives, according to a shocking new report.

Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was driving the 1996 Toyota Corolla that was destroyed in the August 29 drone strike, killing him and nine family members, including seven children, according to a New York Times investigation.

The Pentagon still maintains that only three civilians died, despite the family now detailing in the new report how their 10 relatives were killed in the blast.

Days after the attack, President Joe Biden gave a speech in which he marked the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline. He touted America’s ability to strike terrorists and targets without boots on the ground. But he failed to mention the high civilian casualty rate from the August 29 drone strike, and he failed to mention that children had been killed.

…

Ahmadi worked for US-based aid group Nutrition and Education International, and spent the day running routine errands for the group, loading nothing into the car other than jugs full of water to bring home to his family, the Times reported, citing witnesses and surveillance video footage. 

‘All of them were innocent,’ Ahmadi’s brother Emal told the newspaper, noting that Ahmadi had sought refugee status with the US based on his international aid work. ‘You say he was ISIS, but he worked for the Americans.’  

…

Witnesses say he and his co-workers went to a Taliban-controlled police station that morning to request permission to distribute food to displaced refugees living in a nearby park. 

They returned to the offices at around 2pm, and surveillance footage shows that Ahmadi began filling up water jugs with a hose, which his family say he brought home from the office after water service was cut off in their neighborhood.

‘I filled the containers myself, and helped him load them into the trunk,’ a guard at the office told the Times.

…

US officials say that operator of the Reaper drone quickly scanned and saw only a single adult male greeting the vehicle, and therefore assessed with ‘reasonable certainty’ that no women, children or noncombatants would be killed.

A Hellfire missile struck the Corolla before its engine shut off. 

Ahmadi’s brother Romal was sitting on the ground floor with his wife when a sudden blast blew out the windows. They ran outside to discover a scene of devastation and death.

Six of those who died were inside the car, the others were in the garden of the home in the tightly-packed Khajeh Baghra neighbourhood. 

…

‘This was a righteous strike,’ said Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark A. Milley last week, claiming that Ahmadi was an ‘ISIS facilitator’.

…

‘It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence or technology utilized to determine this was a legitimate target,’ Chris Cobb-Smith, a British Army veteran and security consultant, told the Times. 

Makes one want to throw up.

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Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.

Best humor ever from the Babylon Bee (Smiley Face):

The Merit System in Academia Is Unjust Because It Rewards Productive Individuals, Professors Argue
Campus Reform | 09/09/2021 | Kate Anderson

Professors from the University of Arizona and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, are arguing that “success and merit” are “barriers” to the equity agenda.

“Admitting that the normative definitions of success and merit are in and of themselves barriers to achieving the goals of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion is necessary but not sufficient to create change,” professors Beth Mitchneck and Jessi L. Smith recently wrote for Inside Higher Education.

Oh, wait. It’s real. (Sad Face)

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Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.