The Parable of the Assassin

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, there are peaceful revolutions and there are violent revolutions; which will America’s next revolution be?”

Josh spoke thus:

There was a violent person and there was a peaceful person.

The violent person was lauded for the peace the violent person would bring.

The peaceful person was feared for the violence the peaceful person would cause.

An assassin stood with a long-range rifle.  In the long-range rifle’s firing chamber there was a bullet.  Attached to the top of the long-range rifle was a telescopic sight.  Focusing through the telescopic sight, the assassin trained the long-range rifle on the forehead of the violent person. 

The assassin had meticulously calibrated the telescopic sight that sat atop the long-range rifle.  The assassin had taken the long-range rifle with the telescopic sight to a secret firing range and had meticulously arranged targets at meticulously measured distances.  The assassin had expertly aimed at each meticulously arranged target at each meticulously measured distance and had painstakingly adjusted the geometry of the telescopic sight’s placement atop the long-range rifle so that the assassin could hit a target of almost infinitesimal diameter from an almost impossible distance with such accuracy that the size of the bullet hole was greater than the telescopic sight’s margin of error.

The assassin shifted the telescope sight’s aiming point, and with it the target of the long-range rifle.  The telescopic sight was now trained on the peaceful person.

The assassin did not like the peaceful person, but the assassin was not being paid to like the peaceful person or to dislike the peaceful person.  The assassin trained the rifle once more on the violent person.

The assassin liked the violent person, but the assassin was not being paid to like the violent person or to dislike the violent person.  The assassin trained the rifle once more on the peaceful person.

The assassin’s finger rested at the ready on the trigger of the long-range rifle.  Tension, the assassin knew, was the enemy of accuracy.  For this reason, the assassin’s mind began to empty.  The assassin held no opinions.  The assassin made no judgements.  The assassin merely made a choice.

“Kill one,” the assassin’s client had said, “It doesn’t matter which.”

“How will I choose?” the assassin had asked.

The assassin’s client had replied, “The violent person will bring peace, but at enormous cost.  The peaceful person will bring violence, but the rewards for everyone will be enormous.  Whichever one you think should die, shoot the other.”

In a state of complete relaxation, the assassin aimed the long-distance rifle through the telescopic sight and gently squeezed the trigger, releasing the bullet from the firing chamber of the long-distance rifle with an accuracy so fine that the width of the bullet hole would be larger than the telescopic sight’s margin of error.