Welcome to this Sunday’s Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. Today we target: Pestilencians

  • Are last week’s 4 Ps, now prevailing, merely outcomes of the apocalyptic four horsemen riding on by yet again (conquest, war, famine and, on the pale horse, death)?
  • Still, and lighthearted, is warning one: Don’t try ‘Pestilencians’ in Scrabble?
  • Is warning two: Conflate, mindful of error, historical and contemporary Pestilencians?
  • Do Pestilencians carry all manner of particularly potent disorders/disease plus promoting and perpetuating violence….until, hopefully, they die out?
  • Are the true believer Pestilencians hate possessed fueled by virulent, victimization obsession, independent of causality or blame, but buttressed by tribalism, politics, enabling religion and those making money, or living large, off the deal?
  • When the Pestilencian plea entails destruction and killing, often indiscriminate, do propaganda aided sensitivities and conscience, seek to relieve suffering? Whose suffering?
  • Is the Pestilencian population growing or declining world-wide?
  • What is the effect on and reaction of non-Pestilencians?
  • Can we reason or buy our way out of a potentially very real, existential situation (unlike non-existential, in fact, nonsensical, global warming/climate change with attendant expensive and ineffective, but very controlling, green new deals)?
  • Are we ready to flee or fight?
  • Flee to where, fight who/where, and fund how much for how long?
  • Are we willing to fight but only if the Pestilencians show up at the front door.
  • What if they are already here? Do we coax them or boot them?
  • Are wars springing up a sign of weakness or strength? On whose part?
  • Given the 20 or so ongoing wars with the mid-east and Ukraine/Russia taking top billing, do words like proportionality, pause, and preciseness have purchase or are wars about killing people and, if you kill enough of ’em, they quit fighting?
  • Are Pestilencians, in and out of uniform, fair game? If women, children and old people are ardent supporters, are they justified targets?
  • How are just wars determined and concluded?
  • Does the pestilent siren song continue: “Pestilencians of the world unite and ignite. You have nothing to lose but your chains?”
  • More mitigating 4P leadership and management always and urgently needed?

Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. The answers and actions are yours?