A Little Over the Top

On Wednesday, General Han Min-Koo, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of staff called North Korea's recent shelling of Yeonpyeong Island an "intolerable act against humanity." Humanity suffered four casualties. Two marines and two civilians were killed.

In today's Dallas Morning News, columnist William Murchison cheered the state of Connecticut for imposing the death penalty on Steven Hays. Hays was convicted of beating Dr. William Petit with a baseball bat and raping and strangulating his wife to death. Afterward, Hays tied the Petit's two daughters to their beds and set the house on fire. The girls died. Their father escaped. Murchison described Hays' actions as an outrage against "every known moral premise."

The shelling of Yeonpyeong Island was not an intolerable act against humanity. It was an unprovoked attack that killed four people. Humanity was not shelled by the North Koreans. Yeonpyeong Island was. Hays did not violate every known moral premise. He raped and strangled a woman, beat her husband with a baseball bat, and burned her two daughters to death.

The resort to histrionics is unnecessary. North Korea's shelling was a blatant act of aggression. There is no need to exaggerate. It is clear enough that North Korea's actions were dastardly. There are words enough to describe the shelling without resorting to breathless condemnations. Similarly, it is clear enough that Hays' actions were an outrage. Despite the heinous crimes he was convicted of, the fact is Haynes did not violate every known moral premise. He violated two, maybe three if you count arson as a violation of a moral premise. He raped and he murdered: two of the most viscous crimes a person can commit. They are terrible enough. There is no need to exaggerate or pile adjectives and adverbs on top of them.

To leap to dramatic exaggerations is unnecessary, even deleterious. Adolf Hitler himself did not violate every known moral premise. He did not cheat on his mistress and he was loyal to his friends: as long as they remained his friends. He even had a dog. If we use up our gravest condemnations on family murders and the shelling of islands, we will have nothing left for real outrages. We will be left like teenagers and have to describe future crimes and outrages by putting "way" in front of our exclamations. If the shelling of an island that results in four deaths is an intolerable act against humanity, then genocide must be a way intolerable act against humanity. If the rape and murder of a woman and her two daughters is an outrageous violation of every known moral premise, what is left for monsters like Jeffery Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy?

If our adjectives and adverbs are going to be worth anything in the future we need to try and conserve them. They are already worn thin. Murchison is an editorialist. He should leave embellishment to to others. Min-Koo is a general. He should know the difference between an unprovoked shelling and an intolerable crime against humanity. We need to save some words for later when we might truly need them.