As many episodes of Criminal Minds that I’ve compulsively watched almost against my will over the years, I can’t believe I didn’t figure this out sooner.
The final solution to the age-old problem of war comes to us from the scriptwriters of this show. Okay, here’s the scenario, a crazed power-hungry serial killer is on the loose. The newspapers, to fulfill their sacred duty to the public to keep us informed, not to boost advertising sales, print gripping headlines like “Sadistic Slasher Slices Seven!” We seem to love titles that have words that all start with the same letter, or at least they think we do. There must have been some kind of poll.
As a result of these headlines, people are drawing their shades, purchasing deadbolts in record numbers, installing new security systems, not opening their doors to anyone who doesn’t know the secret password. Gun sales skyrocket. And the serial killer loves it! He loves all the attention, the power to make people cower in fear while he’s single-handedly stimulating the economy and helping to create jobs in the field of personal security.
So what’s the first thing the geniuses on the profiling team in charge of catching this madman do? They tell the newspapers not to print any more stories. They point out that the media is just playing into his hands by giving him the power and attention he craves, and that this is making him kill MORE.
In the case of “world leaders” with sophisticated weaponry, the headlines might read “Maniacal Madmen Murder Millions!” They also stimulate the economy by creating jobs in the field of NATIONAL security. They’re so powerful that they don’t even have to kill anyone directly, but can just order others to do it for them , thereby preserving their own admission into heaven by never technically breaking the thou shalt not kill rule.
So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. All we have to do is stop paying attention. Stop printing and reading about murder if it were something genuinely newsworthy, and most importantly, stop writing history books
We all know that history books are written by the winners of wars, to brag about how successful their strategic killing campaigns were, to demonize the victims and justify the slaughter, pillage, and plunder, using “success” as “proof” that god must have been on their side. By reading history books, we are just giving mass murderers the power and attention, and even adoration, that they want—and it’s definitely making them kill more. Maybe burning books isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Is there a book you’d secretly like to burn even though you would never dream of suppressing an idea? I think if I had to choose one it would be that book in which the main character is a jealoussadist who does stuff like tells someone to kill their own son to prove their loyalty to him, destroys all of mankind except for his favorite family, and keeps people from speaking the same language so they don’t unite and get uppity.
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