A Principle to Keep

     There are many important principles in this world, some more important than others. In my opinion, the most important principle to keep at all times is the unnecessary taking of another person's life. Killing someone in self-defense or in the defense of someone else is one thing, but bloodshed solely your own benefit and nothing else is something that should never be done. Not only do you take another person's life by killing them, you are taking away part of your own humanity. A killer becomes something less than human, maybe even less than the filthy rats that crawl around in the sewers eating waste, because unlike rats, humans have the intelligence to judge whether or not something is right or wrong.
     In normal society, murder is usually rare, due to the punishment that comes along with it. If one does commit murder, it results in the murderer being secluded from society for the rest of their life, or even death. In a post-apocalyptic society, such as the one in The Road, murder seems to happen far more often because of the lift of the governing body and the need to survive, and things far worse than murder such as cannibalism or keeping the person alive to use as a sex slave. The question is whether or not murder is more justified because of these extreme situations where murder is sometimes needed for survival. I do not think that murder is justified at all in this situation, or any situation at all.