Texas seems to be spearheading the Conservative effort to put the Ten Commandments in classrooms around the United States. The liberals who decry this are missing a golden opportunity.

You mean to tell me that your political opponent wants to frame up the rules ordained by God Almighty himself, which are not “guidelines," but absolute rules for a Christian or Catholic to follow… and liberals don’t like this?

Imagine a conservative who is reminded daily that he should not covet the wealth and belongings of others, that he or she shouldn’t cheat on their wife or husband; “love thy neighbor.” What a great resource you, as a liberal, would have to simply point at the singular moral list that a God-fearing man should follow and uphold to the absolute. Born a Catholic myself, I find it nearly absurd how quickly other Christians will balk at gay marriage, but spousal infidelity of their favored politicians (thou shalt not commit adultery) is ignored.

I should stress for those who do not understand – or for those who have fallen from grace and have forgotten – the Ten Commandments were given by God to mankind as his laws. They are so important to Christian’s that they want them front-and-square in their children’s faces. Strangely enough, these commandments are treated the same way that a father teaches lessons to his children: “Do as I say and not as I do!” Meanwhile, the kid watches his father fight and drink, and covet his neighbor’s wife and things. Except the father has forgotten that it’s not his own rules he is ignoring, but God’s, and further yet has forgotten that a truly endless and eternal punishment awaits.

It’s all sillier yet, as on a Fox News talk show, when the hosts were talking about the issue of homelessness in the United States, Mr. Brian Kilmeade said about fixing it: “Yeah, or, involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill them.”

In 2015, Mr. Kilmeade called himself a Catholic.

For those who treasure the study of history, they might be familiar with the program Aktion 14f13, started by the Nazi’s before World War Two, where those with mental disabilities and the homeless were rounded up and sent to gas chambers. In the United States right now, there are 32,882 veterans who are homeless (as per the VA News). The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans reports that over fifty percent of homeless vets have a serious mental illness.

A Canadian vet, David Baltzer did two tours in Afghanistan with the United States, and suffering with PTSD, he called his country’s Veteran helpline, and the responder replied to his plea for help by saying, “Keep an open mind, think about it, you’ve tried all this and nothing seems to be working. Have you thought about medical assisted suicide?” Yahoo News, canada.ca, and other news sources have all reported on Canada’s MAID (medically assisted suicide) programs, but is that really the sort of thing that American’s would want here?

“Thank you for defending my children and me, Mr. American Soldier. Now that you are home with shellshock and your brain is all messed up for it, could you kill yourself? It would make my life easier. What is just one more sacrifice for your country?”

Homelessness is a complex problem, but one that can be fixed. It was a problem the whole world completely ignored until a priest named Father Flanagan came to Omaha from Ireland and established a homeless shelter in 1916 with the intention of figuring out how to fix the issue. A year later, he established what is now the world-renowned Boys Town.

Murder is expedient: the Nazi’s showed the world this, as did Stalin and Mao and every other dictator to come after. But it isn’t right. Who knows if the U.S. economy will truly collapse one day, like during the Great Depression, and you, or someone you love would lose their home and now you, or that person you love has now made the “list" for being: (in the Conservative and supposedly Catholic words of Brian Kilmeade,) “Yeah, or, involuntary lethal injection. Just kill them,”

I took the time to translate the original Hebrew Commandment, “lōʾ tirṣaḥ” or what is translated today into "you shall not kill,” and worked out the most accurate translation which could be possible with English words. To get the full meaning of the Hebrew words, I had to expand my lexicon to Old English words.

“Thou scealt not murder.”

“Thou," being expressly singular and precise to the reader. 

“Scealt” the precursor word to "shalt,” as in ‘shall not,’ however, scealt comes with it: “You must, you owe it – it is binding to you.” (The earliest translation in English I could find of the commandment came from the Old English Heptatuech, which used this variation of the word).

So the real commandment laid out with the definitions of the words unfurled for the layman and the Catholic reader are: "Expressly you who read this, must – bound upon you by God – not commit murder.”

There is a Bible story about a homeless man named Lazarus, who was taken to heaven upon his death, but the rich man was not. There are some great lines in the Bible around this theme of those without shelter, or food, or clothes:

Luke 14:13

“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed."

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure, “Yeah, or, involuntary lethal injection. Just kill them" is nowhere to be found in the teachings of Jesus.

I say let the commandments be up. It seems some conservatives need a reminder to be good people.

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.

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