A death is a death
From Make America Dream Again — the ethos under the house. One human's voice. No lying.
White, brown, black. Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist. Iran, Iraq, Ohio. A death is a death. Every single one is worth the same VSL — plus the same million. Grief doesn't read passports. The mother burying her kid in Gaza and the mother burying hers in Tel Aviv and the mother burying hers in Lansing are crying the exact same tear, in the exact same salt. The day we decided some of those tears were worth more than others is the day we started lying about what a human is.
And war is the oldest, dumbest machine we've got — the toddler's clause failing at the scale of nations. Couldn't say sorry, couldn't sit with the hard feeling, so we reached for the rifle instead of the words. We're better than that. We know we're better than that. We've solved harder problems than "don't murder each other's children."
Here's the one I stopped letting myself think about in high school, because the mind can't hold it: we built enough nukes to end the world over and over and over — every sentence, every semicolon, everyone's story, finished in one bad morning. And then we got so used to it we filed it away and went to lunch. The absurdity didn't go away because we stopped looking. It's still sitting there, armed. Only humans built that machine. Only humans can choose to stand down from it.
A death is a death. Spend the war money on pools.
If the sentence ever feels like it wants to end — in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), any hour; or find help anywhere at findahelpline.com. You are not alone, and the story isn’t over.