I went to a Catholic high school and one of the first things we were taught in English class was to tailor our writing to the specific audience we hoped to reach. Having procrastinated and not really caring too much about the ultimate outcome of my efforts, I applied this theory to the writing of a paper on a “moral issue” for my sophomore Religion class. Although I have always had the utmost respect for the clergy, my Religion teacher was not ordained and didn’t seem all that bright or in control of his class. I decided to test his dedication to teaching by turning in this little gem…“The Moral Justification of Nuclear War.” It was written in 1992 and definitely is a throwback to the good old days of the Cold War.

It was deliberately written as over-the-top, philosophically bankrupt, nationalistic nonsense, but I felt it would resonate with my ultimate audience of one and I mainly wanted to see what kind of response I would get for submitting it.

I wrote it by hand in my Math class the period before it was due, so it’s really not all that well-written and has absolutely no legitimate citations, but looking back on it I do consider it a minor work of genius since, in many ways, it presaged the Bush administration’s pre-emptive war doctrine by over a decade. My teacher, the fool that he was, must have recognized the significance of the work at the time, because it came back to me with the simple inscriptions “A” and “Good.” Please tip to view...Thanks.

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