"Mos Eisley spaceport: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."~ Obi-Wan

Do the right thing. Its important to do the right thing. It used to be a simple rule. Good guys wear the white hats and don’t kill the bad guy even though they have been nearly killed by said bad guy. Perhaps even having the bad guy hanging off a cliff, wall, building, tower, something. The good guy still nearly falls off trying to save the bad guy, he reaches out to keep him from falling.

I am thinking back to the games of boyhood. There are rules. The good guy stands on the side of right, the law. He fights for those who cant fight, he defends the weak and the poor. He brings the fight to those who would oppress the helpless. He certainly never cheats at cards and always wears a white hat.

Bad guys are easy to see, they are sneaky, they will cross you given the chance. They lie cheat and steal. They sneak in the back door, steal the girl and run off into the night. They will hold up the white flag to draw you in and then stab you when you get close. They do not follow the rules.

No boy ever had to sit down and read the rules, they just are THE rules.

Life is more complex as an adult. The bad guys may be bad, may be good, may be both at the same time. No one wears hats much at all any more. We still have rules. Somewhere along the line, we as humans decided to make war humane.

It never occurred to the 6-year-old boy that there were humane ways to shoot people. That one kind of bullet is more civil to use rather than another. You just shoot the bad guy and he grabs his chest and falls over and there is never ever any blood.

Agree or disagree, there are rules and you follow them. You follow them or there are consequences for your choices. The prison system is no exception. Once a bad guy gives up, he stops being a bad guy and you have to help him. It’s a rule. You certainly do not get to hurt him at will. My stomach turns at the shit you see here. Some countries do not play by the rules, the skim along close to the rules but then drastically deviate from them when they think no one is looking or will care. I care. Wrong is wrong, we are the good guys and you play by the rules.

I don’t know where this deep need to follow the rules comes from. It is so deeply ingrained in me that I dare not disobey it. Its not a fear of the consequences. It’s a fear of no longer being the “good guy”.

The dark side of the force is strong, and it tempts. It offers power, it will give you much, but in the end it will take your soul in exchange for its power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Resist the dark side in every way, do not condone it, do not accept it, do not ignore it. Fight it.