Verses On Five People Being Killed By A Falling Package Of Foreign Aid

Verses On Five People Being Killed By A Falling Package Of Foreign Aid

by Scott Alexander

When God placed Man upon the earth

In days of God knows when

He said to love the Lord your God

And love your fellow men

It's safe enough to love the Lord

In worship or in song

The Lord your God is far away

And very, very strong

But he who loves his fellow man

Must careful be, and agile

For fellow men are very close

And very, very fragile

So Midgley, Marx, and Mao, and more

All had their tale to tell

They tried to help their fellow men

And pushed them into Hell

And Galton, Ehrlich, Robespierre

Corbusier and Kipling

All saw their actions ripple out

And worsen in the rippling

And every time you throw a coin

Into a beggar's jar

The coin could strike the beggar's face

And leave him with a scar

And every slice of bread you give

To a child starved and broke

Could lodge the wrong way in his throat

And cause the kid to choke

The best laid plans of mice and men

Are oft unwisely laid

And end with Palestinians

Struck dead by falling aid

When young, I learned philosophy

At many a scholar's door

And all the wisdom that I learned

Came down to options four:

To make your heart as hard as stone

Like the heart of a machine

And sit there supercilious

Because your hands are clean

To pet your dog and kiss your kid

And call your duty done

While far away, the Gazan girls

Are dropping one by one

To rush in bright and glorious

'Neath the golden flag of Good

Then apologize at leisure to

Men crushed by falling food

Or to creep in like accountants

Using gain and loss as anchors

As cunning as the serpents

And as cold as Wall Street bankers

When I was young, I fought among

The golden-flagged crusaders

But now I’m old, and now I stand

Beside the snakes and traders

So when my plans go all awry

And my name becomes a curse

I can say the other option was

Eleven utils worse

And if upon the Judgment Day

God comes to me in wrath

I'll have a PowerPoint prepared

To prove I did the math

And if, upon the Judgment Day

God says my math is wrong

I'll tell Him He is far away

And very, very strong

But man is very, very close

And very, very brittle

And we can only do our best

Or sit there, noncommital

And so we sighed, and multiplied

And after that, we prayed

For souls of Palestinians

Struck dead by falling aid.