preemptive aggression

I have never perceived myself as an aggressor.

In high school, I did find it strange that a person who found himself in a fight would be punished just as much as the one who started it. That never seemed right to me. I saw a big difference in defending yourself and picking a fight. But not the school board...a fight was a fight.

And when we went to war in Afghanistan after 9-11, I didn't have a problem with that. We were defending ourselves. When we went to war with Iraq, I struggled inside with that quite a bit. Two different countries, two different situations, two totally different scenarios. I wasn't comfortable with the whole concept of preemptive aggression (get them before they get us). Until today.

Within the last month, we've had two unusual occurrences. We found a dead hornet in the garage. Then one morning this week we saw this on the bathroom window:

It was about 2.5" long. Bobby says it's a hornet. Maybe it's a mutant yellow jacket, I don't know.
But then during breakfast, I noticed the tiny little wasp nest on the porch is no longer small. I also remember getting stung by a wasp a few summers ago, through my blue jeans, and waking up the next morning with my thigh swollen out the size of a football.

This is after I sprayed. I think the two are somehow attached to the nest. The others gracefully fell to the porch.

I don't think I got them all in the picture. I counted at least 14 as they fell.

These wasps have never come after me. My evolutionist friends would call this survival of the fittest. I'm ensuring my survival and well-being. My Hindu friend might find this horrific: the killing of an innocent part of creation, who could also very well be a deceased family or friend reincarnated. Perhaps an extreme Christian might even say I'm not exhibiting "long-suffering" by aggressively getting rid of the wasps. My health nut friends would absolutely be horrified by my use of an aerosol can shooting pesticides onto our place of dwelling. But whatever people say, I don't have to worry about Bobby leaving the back door to go down the ramp and getting stung, or me getting stung and swelling up like a helium balloon.

I think in some cases preemptive aggression is okay. Now, if I start seeing a car driving aggressively and slam into them before they get the chance to hit me, or jump out of my car and start attacking a group of kids who look like they're staking people out in a bad section of town, then I think it will be safe for my friends and family to say I've crossed the line and lock me up in a padded room. But until then, watch out. I am armed with my 25 ft shooting aerosol can of poison, and I ain't afraid to use it.