There are way too many media outlets such as movies, television, and so forth that try to portray life in the most simplistic terms available, so as to make one side, to be all good, whereas the other side is all bad. Of course, in these types of situations it is fairly easy for those watching or participating to sanction whatever treatment that the bad guys get, because, well they are bad. Unfortunately, it is because of this type of simplistic and specious reasoning that there is not now, nor will there be ever, peace on earth, because as long as you aggregate to yourself, as the good entity, that you have the right to annihilate what you have designated as bad, you are no longer good.
America is a great military power, both within as well as without, so that the same mindset that we take to war with our foreign enemies seems to be the exact same mindset that we take to war on our domestic foes. For instance, whatever country that we seem to have a dispute with, the mainstream media makes sure to march in lockstep with the military-industrial complex so as to portray this foreign country or insurgency as something that is less than human, or less than civilized, and of an imminent danger to the world at large. While there may be some truth in this portrayal, it is typically only a small sliver of truth, whereas the biggest issues of the day, of justice, of economic opportunity, education, and so forth, are left far behind. In regards to our domestic foes, America so often prefers to militarize things so as to portray that drastic and strong actions by the State or its agencies are necessary to interdict drugs, or whatever, and that therefore basic civil rights, basic justice, and basic civility, must be push aside, for the greater need of stopping the bad guys.
All of the forgoing is intellectually dishonest as well as being directly subversive to the principles of our Constitution as well as our Declaration of Independence. Today, in far too many instances, government and its agencies have aggregated onto themselves the godlike belief that they are the sole arbiters of what is good and what is bad and subsequently that they will do whatever that they deem to be necessary to deal with the problem of the bad guys.
The thing is that justice carried to the extreme, is injustice. And every bullet pumped into a bad person, should have been a bullet used only because the exigencies of the situation mandated it. So too, every country that we carpet bomb, assassinate their high officials, interfere in their domestic affairs, and disrupt their normal day-to-day activities, should be a country that clearly is a meaningful menace not only to its own people but to the world at large.
The easiest thing for all these authorities to say to us each and every day is that they spend all of their time searching, targeting, and destroying the bad guys, and because of their great patriotic duty they have made the world a safer and better place. In fact, they haven't done anything of the sort, except in the most extraordinary of circumstances; instead, they have kicked aside the principle of human empathy and of being a good neighbor, and have forgotten what our greatest President told us, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"