First of all, the stock market would drop like a rock. Lots of money is being made off the military industrial complex. Also, where would our soldiers work? McDonalds? This peace thing would not be good for our country. Our country is built on money, thrives on money, and if you don't have any, well . . . too bad.

Let's face it; wars are good business. Sure, some say that without wars and strife among nations, trade would flourish and the world would become a heaven on earth, but what do they know? It might turn out to be the opposite; maybe we would all just kick back and become socialists and marxists, lazy and shiftless, just meditating and praying all the time and not producing anything that we can make any money on. That would be a disaster!

And another thing; America would not have the same clout without a big military. We can pretty much have it our way now, but if the military went the way of the horse and buggy, how would we distinguish ourselves? After all, our military is our foreign policy!

And how about the fact that no matter what political system we have had, it always changes. The left becomes the right and the right becomes the left; it has always been that way. So you can bet that war would certainly break out again, it's a certainty, and we would be caught with our pants down when it does.

No, the answer is to build up our military and nuclear arsenal, just in case. Not that we would ever be tempted to use it and see how effective it is. No, we would never do that, no matter how powerful we became. We would just let it sit there and act as a deterrent. Think of all the times when our powerful military hasn't been used in the past. (Hmm, I'm thinking.)

I'm afraid peace just wouldn't work. For one thing, what would we watch on CNN or FOX? It's all pretty boring without a good televised war, I mean, fires and hurricanes don't cut it, they never live up to a good, live shooting war. What drama, huh? And a nuclear war, wow, that would really be cool. We would show "them" whose boss!

Okay, we can forget about peace, it's just not in our blood. It would be far too dangerous right now, but maybe someday. Maybe when we destroy all of our enemies, nuke ‘em or something, then we can sit back and be peaceful.

Yeah, that's it; destroy ‘em all. That's the answer. Then we can know that we did everything possible to protect our children, whom we love so dearly.

Now I feel a lot better.

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E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com