It is a mistake to shield the world from videos of beheadings.

The Islamic group called ISIS beheaded American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and a British aid worker David Haines. You and I have not been permitted to see these beheadings because the powers that be consider them too gruesome. Those powers want to protect our delicate sensibilities. There is truth to be discovered and understood in seeing and feeling the horror of seeing what humanity is capable of today. We are in Darwinian devolution. The world seems marching toward madness, murder and the Middle Ages in a thirst for blood.

We should see it; feel the threat as it is, not told to us. Clearly the ISIS warriors want us to tremble and faint with fear and trepidation in its pursuit of dominion. It’s doubtful it would accomplish that aim.

The best of humanity has fought to thwart man’s craven inhumanity toward man.

It was the power of photographs and videos that showed us what we were doing in Vietnam. It was the photographs and videos of Sheriff Bull Connor’s dogs in Birmingham that showed us truth of segregation and hate in the South.

We cannot afford the luxury of being shielded from the horrors of hate. We must see it, feel it to comprehend the full power of religious hate that seeks nothing short of our complete destruction.