Our Three Amigos

I had three nearly identical conversations with three of my amigo over the last month. I’ll call them Steve, Chevy, and Martin after the original Three Amigos who starred in the 1986 film. You know the story, or maybe you don’t: The people of a Mexican town called Santa Poco hire three out of work actors (the amigos!) to free them from their nemesis, the murderous bully El Guapo. By “free them from” they mean kill, and that’s ok because El Guapo is bad and the three amigos are good. We know this because El Guapo “looks” bad while the amigos “look” good in what would today be considered embarrassingly racist way. Also the amigos are funnier.  

Anyway, killing Santa Pocans is bad and killing El Guapo good. You see the difference, right? It’s the difference between shaming a Karen who yells at kids for not masking up because she wants to dominate them (good) and shaming a Karen who won’t mask up no matter how much you yell when want to feel better by way of dominating her (bad). Got it?

The difference is clear: some killing is good and other killing bad. Good killing is when people I like kill people I don’t, and bad killing is when people I don’t like kill people I do. Perspective has nothing to do with it; my perspective is God’s perspective. I know this because it makes me feel good and God wants me to be happy. Their perspective (the bad people’s perspective) does not matter. They are flat out wrong. God hates them. You can take John Calvin’s word for it.

Rene Girard and Gil Bailie

Rene Girard and Gil Bailie disagree with Calvin. Bailie, in his book Violence Unveiled, points out that the world divides violence into four types: Sacred or Sanctioned on the one hand, versus Blasphemous or Criminal on the other. In any country where the state speaks for God, like Murica, that reduces to two types: Approved and Disapproved.

Quite apart from the fact that Approved violence is good while Disapproved is bad, and in case you are too stupid to know which is which, you can tell them apart like this: the state (speaking for God) permits Approved but punishes Disapproved violence. So, when men hiding behind masks stop traffic and randomly point guns into cars to protest men hiding behind badges who stop traffic and randomly point guns into cars, well one ought to be praised and the other punished. It’s as simple as that, and we all know which is which.

Girard simplifies things even further and says there is only one type of violence: violence against an innocent victim. He goes on to say that only one perspective matters: the victim’s perspective.

My Three Amigos

Anyway, back to my three amigos.

While my amigo Steve and I were reading The Lord Of The Rings a few weeks ago and discussing the Great War of the Ring, he remarked that Biden’s farewell gift to Afghanistan, a bomb dropped on the heads of 7 children plus 3 adult innocents, might actually have been bad. He expressed some disgust that the bombing lobby investigated and absolved itself of any wrong doing. He even went so far as to say that’s how Murica makes more terrorists, whatever they are. That was as bad as anything Russians do, he said. (Or, if you’re a fellow LOTR fan who sports a ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ yard sign and a blue and yellow profile flag, as bad as anything Orcs do.)

Here’s the thing: Steve is a retired combat pilot, an ex bomb-slinger.

My second amigo, Chevy, builds bombs but does not sling them. Uncle Joe’s blooper of a parting gift, well, that’s a shame he says but understandable because everyone involved in the kill is one of us, a good guy. Now that Russian bomb that killed 13 Ukranian shoppers, that was bad. At first I imagined he deplored it because it interfered with Murica’s favorite religions rite, shopping. Nope. His reason? ‘You have no idea how bad the Russians are in Syria,’ he said. Us good our bombs good. Russians bad their bombs bad. Simple. Why couldn’t I see that?

My third amigo, Martin, contracts for the State Department helping war refugees oversees and what not. A nice guy doing humanitarian work. The subject of the Russian bomb came up. I likened it to JB’s Afghanistan faux pas. They are nothing alike, he said. Russia’s bomb was a war crime. ‘Why?’ I asked. Because they bombed hospitals in Syria, he answered.

Three amigos, three perspectives. 13 dead Ukranians and 10 dead Afghanis. I wonder whose perspective matters to Rene Girard.