A Special Place in Hell
05.21.02

Let's assume for a moment that there IS a Hell, a place where the bad people go when they die to be punished for all eternity for their evil doings on Earth. Let's also assume that there might be a slightly harsher punishment for those who have committed slightly harsher crimes. For instance, Adolph Hitler problem isn't sharing a rack with your old next door neighbor who stared at your sister through the window until he died. Good ol' Adolph is probably in a... special place in hell; a place where only the REALLY bad people go. There's a pretty good chance that the following folks are right there with him.

There's a special place in Hell reserved for...

...Insurance Companies: The people who tell you that despite being diagnosed with chronic (and one day, terminal) heart failure and partial paralysis, you don't qualified as disabled and are being denied coverage. These people get paid by you to deny every claim you make the first time, in the off chance that you'll give up fighting and just pay the ridiculous bill your self. It's because of them we have no good health care in America. So they burn in a special place in Hell.

...Lawyers: I don't really need to explain this one, do I? Okay, if you really NEED a reason for my playing judge and jury on this one, how about this... if it weren't for the lawyers suing doctors for ludicrous amounts of money over tiny things, the insurance companies wouldn't want to bend us over a barstool when we were really sick. Ergo: Hell.

...Spam Marketers and TeleMarketers: If I were to tell you that we're going into business and are going to make our living out of calling people at home during dinner or waking them up on Saturday mornings, or that we were going to collect or pay for hundreds of thousands of e-mail addresses and send out product e-mails until all the Inboxes in the world are filled, you'd say I'm a loon. I'd tell you that it was perfectly legal as long as I put a line on the bottom of the mail saying they asked for this but not telling them HOW, you'd say I was an asshole, and should burn in a special place in Hell.

...Anyone who kills in the name of God: If God wants anyone dead, I'm pretty sure God can take care of that task without anyone's help. In fact, at least half the world would agree that one of the few rules that God had written in stone was "Thou shalt not kill." So I'm rather certain that doing so in God's name gets you into that special place.

...Doctors who keep people alive long past their time: This is mostly a Western problem. We've somehow come to the conclusion that quantity of life is more important than quality of life. Our technology is researched and driven towards the goal of adding years onto life, and our doctors, for the most part, assist in doing the same. Pain, uselessness, loneliness... these things don't matter. Only preserving life for as long as possible matters, or for as long as the insurance companies will pay (see above). So these doctors will have their special place when their lives are allowed to end.

...Child-molesting Clergy: Pedophiles are bad enough. You KNOW they're going to Hell. But clergy? The earthly representatives of God? Go directly to your special place in Hell. Do not pass Purgatory. Do not wait 200 years. And those who cover their trails are no better. Off you go right with them.