One of these things is not like the other one

[alice wellintown]

> Well, that's actually not all it does.  It also reinforces the idea
> that the State has a right and even a duty to kill people.  Slippery
> slope.

That the State, with its black arts, can make men and women who do not
think or freely exercise the conscience, but revert to primitive
blood-sport, who are but bodies, mere shadows and reminiscences of
humanity (Thoreau), and that the mass of men and women continue to see
and thus serve the state thus is evidence of how far down that
slippery slope the "Greatest Poem" (Whitman) has slid, or to employ
Thoreau's metaphor, marched against their wills. Such sliding down and
marching up cause a "palpitation of the heart" and stirs the
conscience of patriots and heroes.

Thanks to all you Vets in P-Land.