Monsters

They're not friendly

Meme by me. Quote from “Kingdom Of Heaven”.

I’ll get back to writing the light and fluffy stuff soon, I promise.

“There’s nothing worse than a monster who thinks he’s right with God.”
~Malcom Reynolds, captain of the cargo ship Serenity

I have spent a great deal of my life fighting monsters. Not the fun monsters that Larry Correia writes about, but the tawdry, dreary reality of men engaged in the ten thousand ways of being inhumane to other men.

I have seen the monsters borne of greed; of madness; and those borne out of lust for power over others.

Of all the monsters I’ve had dealings with over the last five decades, the absolute worst are the fanatics — those monsters who think they’re right with God¹.

Fanatics are people who think that their actions are blessed and/or required by a Higher Power; and are scary for a lot of reasons, but the two primary are:

1. Not only are their consciences clean no matter the evil they do, but there’s usually a group of like-minded people (mob, Politburo, cult, congregation, cell, bloc, Social Media, whathaveyou) providing moral support, validation, hero worship, and all of the other fun stuff that falls under “Group Dynamics”; and

2. Mission Creep. Defined as: “The expansion of a mission or task beyond its original goals, often after initial successes”, in this context mission creep refers to the nasty habit that fanatics have of always expanding their butcher bill list of “Heretics, Heathens, Idolaters, And Other What Deserve Our Righteous Wrath”. Yes, they always expand this list — unless and until someone (metaphorically-speaking²) holds their little heads under water until the bubbling stops.

In Africa and the Middle East, I witnessed first-hand the damage that fanatics can do; along with the snow-white consciences of those who committed some of the worst atrocities ever seen by the gods in the name of ideology, or religion, or politics.

Here in the United States — other than a brief fanatic embuggerance during the 1930s and 1940s, and again in 2020 — we don’t have a lot of experience with the little bugsnipes. Here when fanatics move up to their post-doctoral studies, the Rule of Law or society in general plays Whack-A-Mole with them, and then we trundle on our merry way.

In the last score of years or so, I’m starting to worry that this is no longer the case — and this concerns me, although probably not in the way that the average Gentle Reader imagines.

The company that my father worked for had a policy of hiring most of their employees from amongst the ranks of war veterans. The CEO was of the opinion that someone who had not only already been overseas, but had been shot at overseas, could probably handle anything West Africa could throw at them.

An educated tribesman from the northern part of the country — we’ll call him “Abdul” — got hisself bitten by the Religion Bug, came into our neck of the jungle, and set about bringing Allah to the fuzzy-wuzzies. Started out ok — if a little enthusiastic — built up a group of worshippers sycophants, did Some Good³.

However, things started getting all fire-and-brimstone, and next thing we know, some poor lad gets immolated for recreational friction with an unsanctioned partner after being singled out by Our Wee Fanatic.

Things get all hot and bothered for a bit, but it’s all yelling and chest-pounding, and things settle down. Two weeks later, Abdul the Moderately Rabid goes a-wandering in the jungle at night and winds up as Kitty Kibble.

The local elders put a slam order on the leopard, call Da’, and I go out with him to do the needful. We start at the body, track the man-eater down, Da’ hoses him with a full magazine of 12 bore⁴, and that was the end of it.

Except, at the body, I realized that Abdul the Moderately Rabid had been done in with an extremely sharp knife run into his neck from the side and punched out the front. All that the leopard did was clean up the carrion.

That’s what I’m worried about.

There are a whole bunch of 50-70 year-olds in the United States who fought the Cold War in dark alleys, midnight ports, and moonlit rooftops with knives, brass knuckles, and silenced pistols.

There are a whole bunch of 30-50 year-olds in the United States who fought vicious CQC battles in places like Mogadishu, Tora Bora, Fallujah, Najaf, and Mazar E Sharif.

There are 20-somethings from places like Compton, El Paso, Chicago, Detroit, Tiajuana, “the barrio”, “the ghetto”, and “the heights” who have stainless-steel teeth and thousand yard stares.

There are uncounted numbers of immigrants who have come here from war-torn hell-holes — and brought the skills and attitudes that enabled them to survive along.

On top of all that — America is the only country⁵ that I know of where a man of good record can walk into a school, hand over cold hard cash, and get a weekend of training that Special Forces in the Third World are envious of⁶.

This is what I’m worried about.

I’m worried that when Biff the Hygienically-Challenged and his Coterie of Fanatics decide that sucker-punching neo-nazis just isn’t enough — or torching electric cars doesn’t have that same rush — and mission creep themselves into Proper Fanatical Stupidity, that some truly scary people are going to start whacking and stacking in response.

I don’t want to find myself standing over what’s left of a coyote attack and suddenly realizing that unless coyotes are carrying knives, some unsettlingly well-trained monster has just decided that he has had enough, and has gone hunting.

Y’all should be worried about this, too.

Ian

1. “God” is oft short-hand for ideology, philosophy, religion, politics, or anything else that separates “You” from “Them”.

2. Usually. Sometimes literally.

3. Less than you would think, but he had good PR.

4. Da’ REALLY hated leopards.

5. And God bless us for this.

6. The number of foreign observers I’ve had drinks with who are literally horrified that American citizens can go to places like Gunsite, CSAT, Thunder Ranch, and many, many other good quality schools is Legion.