The best of humanity

In series (season) five of the new Doctor Who Series (stay with me), the Doctor and his companions stumble upon the original species of earth-ians, called Silurians. Primitive people living underground, basically waiting their turn to inhabit the surface of the earth again. Or trying to wait. (Seriously, stay with me.)

Humans accidentally invade the underground home and the Silurians get super pissed thinking they're under attack. Chaos ensues and each species takes hostages.

The Doctor, ever the attempted-peace-maker, must go to the Silurians to request the release of his friends leaving four humans in charge of the Silurian warrior they have captured.

"While I'm gone, you four people, in this church, in this corner of planet Earth, you have to be the best of humanity.... No dissecting, no examining. We return their hostage, they return ours, nobody gets harmed. We can land this together, if you are the best you can be. You are decent, brilliant people. Nobody dies today. Understand?"  

But they can't all be the best of humanity. They fail and they kill their hostage. (Still there?)

While I love my country, I am not always proud to be an American. We are a young and arrogant mother (as far as countries go).  We think we are justified to do whatever it takes to protect our children, but we forget that when we act with arrogance... with righteous indignation...without thought for humanity, without adherence to the concepts that make us great... freedom... human rights... due process...  we make our world less safe.

When we talk about things like the death penalty, people want to appeal to us as victims. "How would you feel if it was your child that was murdered?" Pretty much like murdering that fucker in the face with knives. But we didn't build our justice system on a jury of our victims. We built it on a jury of our peers. Because if those determining what is just cannot be distanced enough to be rational, there is no due process.

There is no justice.

Once we become killers, we cannot condemn those who kill.

Once we become torturers, we lose the ability to punish those who torture.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Gerald Seymour 

So which are we? Are we the chicken or the egg?  

If we want to truly be the leaders of the free world, we have to be the best of humanity. We have to.