The demons will win.

A few days ago I was asked about Jesus' behavior in Matthew 8:28-33. In that passage, he's getting ready to cast out some demons, when they beg for mercy. The demons ask to not be sent to wherever it was they expected to get sent, and instead they asked to be allowed to inhabit some nearby pig.

Someone wanted to know why Jesus did as they asked? My simplistic answer was, "Well, look at the results." At the time I hadn't made any connection to words we hear spoken all the time as the policy of the United States. However, while reading a post by Glenn Greenwald today, this phrase jumped out.

Mature societies do not make decisions by wondering what the Bad People want and then automatically doing the opposite. That is the mindset of a child.

Glenn's post is about the way Israel, both citizenry and government, dealt with their brief conflict with Lebanon last year, both during the war and after. The occasion of his post is the publication of a highly critical report from the Winograd Commission, which was assigned by Israel's government, with the task of assessing the military campaign.

The difference between Israel's approach and the American approach is stunning. You can read Glenn's post for all the details, but the fact that Israel sits in the middle of countries that would like to see it disappear as a country, but allows for the critical discussion that's a hallmark of democracies, is an indication of how far politics has influenced our own discourse. By that I mean that phrases such as "emboldening the enemy" and accusations of treason are politically motivated, not policy-based. Particularly goofy and egregious is the idea that if our best interest happens to be the same as the enemy's it doesn't matter, we'll do the opposite. As Glenn said.

Applying this goofy idea to Jesus' situation, imagine if the story went this way. As the demons cried out to be allowed to enter the pigs instead of banishment, the crowd interrupted, saying, "Don't do it Jesus. If you send them to the pigs, the demons will win."