“If you study this planet we live on as I have, you know that violence is pretty routine. Killing is as natural as eating. Everybody is a killer. Do you have any idea who died making your clothes or shoes or cell phone, or even what country they lived in? Do you know who got shot off the land where the gas in the tank of your car came from? No, you don’t, and you don’t care. I don’t either. That beef we had for dinner tonight sure was good, wasn’t it? Think about all the animals that die so I can eat meat every day. I don’t eat as much meat as I used to—no more than two or three steers a year, and a few pigs, but they’ve got fat and cholesterol, and I want to live forever. So I’ve added in about a hundred chickens a year, and about a hundred fish. Even if I don’t shoot it, hook it, or cut its throat, I still kill it. My life requires the taking of all those other lives. If we didn’t eat meat, you know how much hay or something we’d need each day for the same nutrition? About a bushel or so. But we can’t, because we’re not creatures that can process it. We’re creatures who kill, because we thrive on the flesh and on the killing too.

“Think about your life, ladies and gentlemen. The first thing you learned as a baby was not to get shit on yourself, and the second was that the planet is populated by things that mean you harm. Most of the ones you have to worry about don’t weigh three tons and charge you at fifty miles an hour. They look just like you. We came here for a simple bit of education that your mama wasn’t able to give you. It’s learning how to kill those bastards before they kill you.

“But make no mistake. I am a religious man, and I believe in Jesus. It takes a lot of courage to decide it’s better to be the one who dies instead of the one who kills. If you’re that sort of person, you’ll get from me deep respect and a nice funeral. But I’m not that sort myself.