George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing2005

George Carlin:
Human beings will do anything, anything. I am convinced. That's why when all those beheadings started in Iraq, it didn't bother me. A lot of people here were horrified, "Whaaaa, beheadings! Beheadings!" What, are you f***ing surprised? Just one more form of extreme human behavior. Besides, who cares about some mercenary civilian contractor from Oklahoma who gets his head cut off? F*** 'em. Hey Jack, you don't want to get your head cut off? Stay the f*** in Oklahoma. They ain't cuttin' off heads in Oklahoma, far as I know. But I do know this: you strap on a gun and go struttin' around some other man's country, you'd better be ready for some action, Jack. People are touchy about that sort of thing. And let me ask you this... this is a moral question, not rhetorical, I'm looking for the answer: what is the moral difference between cuttin' off one guy's head, or two, or three, or five, or ten - and dropping a big bomb on a hospital and killing a whole bunch of sick kids? Has anybody in authority given you an explanation of the difference? Now, in case you're wondering why I have a certain interest, or fascination let's call it, with torture and beheadings and all of those things I have mentioned, is because each of these items reminds me in life over and over again what beasts we human beings really are. When you get right down to it, human beings are nothing more than ordinary jungle beasts. Savages. No different from the Cro Magnon people who lived twenty five thousand years ago. No different. Our DNA hasn't changed substantially in a hundred thousand years. We're still operating out of the lower brain. The reptilian brain. Fight or flight. Kill or be killed. We like to think we've evolved and advanced because we can build a computer, fly an airplane, travel underwater, we can write a sonnet, paint a painting, compose an opera. But you know something? We're barely out of the jungle on this planet. Barely out of the f***ing jungle. What we are, is semi-civilized beasts, with baseball caps and automatic weapons.