Picture a society of 300 million people. Despite their large population and diverse cultures lending to an eclectic appearance, they are for the most part a happy people. They get along well enough with neighbor and state. Their nation is extremely prosperous and popular around the world. So sincere and content are the people of this land that they readily come to the aid of their fellow man in times of disaster and hardship. Their altruism reaches across the sea to other people living in places where life remains poor and bleak. People around the world envy this idyllic nation mostly for its innate human rights: free speech and religion, even thoughts and ideas. Ah, and the motto of this comparatively young nation: The pursuit of happiness!
But there is one enormous problem for those living in this great free society. Every so often, but increasingly, a dozen or more inhabitants are randomly injured and even killed by a menace, always the same exact menace. The attacks are often unforeseen and sporadic. Within the past couple decades the menace has caused countless deaths and insurmountable sorrow throughout the land. Mostly the menace haunts large gathering places of humanity: shopping centers, movie theaters, schools, colleges, night clubs, baseball fields, parks, Christmas parties, halls of justice, concerts, even churches. But by all accounts, high schools have been the preferred target.
The menace comes around again and again, leaving the same macabre scene of bloody carnage and wounded survivors physically, emotionally and spiritually—some permanently traumatized. Incredulously, there seems to be no solution to rid this beautiful society—no doubt the greatest ever on earth—of its deadly menace, which to most people of the world seems very strange. In fact, people of the world don’t think the menace cannot be conquered. The world remains aghast at the perpetual atrocities by the lone menace allowed free range in an otherwise peace-loving society.
Ad nauseam
Within the white dome buildings with towering columns and spacious porticos, the great society’s elected leaders remain at an impasse: divided on how to eradicate their nation’s growing menace. One side, including the grand leader, has come to believe the menace will only be conquered by the same menace—not unlike a vaccine containing a little of the deadly virus to build immunity and prevent mass illness and death. They think their idea is logical and sound.
But other leaders do not believe in the same method to eradicate the greatly feared menace. This group refuses to believe in fighting a menace of this caliber with the same or similar menace. They seek solutions without really knowing how to bring down once and for all the omnipotent menace, still roaming the great society, and as the citizenry young and old has learned to accept, most certainly planning the next scary bloody insane massacre.
After the latest high school massacre, though, hundreds of students who lived to tell about it found themselves collectively emboldened to speak out against the menace so that it never strikes another school ever again. Their rage was not so much at the menace but at their society’s leaders, even the grand one. Unified in mind and voice and of one accord, they called the oldest generation—the generation of their grandfathers than their fathers—weak, feeble and impotent. Using microphones, cameras and the internet, they instantly spread their message across the land: Down with leaders who support the menace! Down with the organization that supports the menace and allows it to spread! Down with leaders who take money from the organization that supports the menace!
Even the grand leader could not hide and pretend he did not hear: words spoken by the youth, a generation growing up without a single day’s peace while attending the great society’s schools. Having survived an attack by the menace, confronting the deadly evil they had heard about all their lives, they became energized by a shared fervor. The teen survivors were joined by others whose lives were marred by the menace in school massacres across the land. For some reason, they were summarily granted a meeting with the grand leader face to face. Not to waste the leader’s time, they rationally and calmly presented only one request: No more menace. We’re sick and tired of the menace. Do something about the menace now.
But instead of going after the menace, and finally doing away with its deadly power, the grand leader called on arming teachers to fight the menace at school. This was not at all the scenario envisioned by the massacre survivors. Why didn’t the grand leader understand their simple plea? They were quite clear: No more menace. Massacre survivors young and old never called on more menace to fight the menace. To the survivors, that was nonsensical, like a Hollywood action movie, based on fantasy not reality.
At this point in time, the menace has not left the great society and still remains the constant evil that will not be destroyed. As for other lands, the menace rarely rears its ugly head. Every society on earth has prevented the menace at least from spreading as it has done so freely throughout the entire great society, shore to shore, engulfing thousands in blood, death and fear.
“Strange,” others around the world ponder. “The great society is not at war. Is it?”