Giving Thanks but No Thanks

Bullying has been in the news quite bit lately. Several teenagers have taken their lives to escape this evil. On this Thanksgiving Day, as I reflect on all the reasons I have to be thankful I am especially thankful that I have never been bullied. Not once. I have been mocked and ridiculed, but never bullied.

Nobody likes to be bullied; not even bullies. That is the reason they pick on the weak and defenseless. But even worse than being bullied by another is being bullied by yourself. Yes, autobullying. I'm sure you never knew it existed. Worse than someone bullying himself would be a group of people bullying themselves. Even worse than a group of people bullying themselves would be an entire species bullying itself.

By now you must be wondering what I am talking about. Allow me to explain,

We often think of bullying in terms of violence but not all bullying involves violence. There may be a threat of violence but the bully does not necessarily want to beat up his victim. The bully does not mind leaving his victim alone as long as the victim pays for the privilege. It is the same idea behind protectionWe ou money racquets. You can live your life in peace if you pay for the privilege.

The problem is that it is the right of every person to be able to live his life in peace. I ought to be able to go to school without having to turn my lunch money over to some tough guy. I ought to be able to ply my trade in any locale where it is legal to do so without having to pony up a percentage of my profits to another. We ought to be able to live in peace without having to pay for the privilege.

Why, then, do humans spend billions of dollars each year to maintain peace on this planet? I am referring to the global crime fighting and military budgets, as well as the money spent in peacemaking and peacekeeping programs. We have not spent one cent, peso, or bolivar to protect ourselves from foreign invaders. Humans have never fought a real war. Every war that has ever been fought on this planet has been a civil war; humans fighting humans. The reason these skirmishes make the news is because we all know that there is something unnatural about this. We should not be fighting each other. The only reason why we survived out of the mists of prehistory is because we did not fight each other in those early years. We were just as different then as we are now. We lived together without stockpiling weapons. Granted we did not have the military technology we have today but we did not feel the need to. Humans competed with each other; we always have. But we did not see each other as enemies. We did not have to pay for the privilege of peaceful coexistence.

Today we stockpile weapons and maintain standing armies mainly as a deterrent from other humans who have difficulty recognizing that we are one species. Most of the arms in our arsenals will never be used. They will become obsolete and will be destroyed. This is an obvious waste of resources. Every year millions are spent training humans to become killing machines of other humans. Can anyone estimate what the effect would be on our highways if all the fuel used by the worlds armies and navies to train and maintain their men and equipment were released into the open market?

How much longer will we keep bullying ourselves; spending billions of dollars for the right to live the way nature designed that we should live? When will we really be able to give a heartfelt thanks that we have come to our senses, and each boxer has returned to his corner? If we are really concerned about bullying we need to take a look at the way we bully ourselves everyday.

Happy Thanksgiving.