Public education does a lot of good. But it cannot teach a proper approach to God, and without God, there is no cogent moral reasoning.

It all eventually falls flat. The result? Individuals with no ability to answer the most fundamental questions about morality. Or, in the sharp words of Southern fiction writer Flannery O'Connor: moral morons. People like the protagonist of my allegory of the bugs …

Some people kill bugs for no good reason. Not me. I kill only when provoked.

What's that fly doing in my house? Swat! Why does that mosquito keep buzzing in my ear? Clap! That bee is threatening my child? Swish (sound of rushing tennis racket).

But maybe I shouldn't take such harsh stances. After all, it's probably just a matter of personal value systems. The insects’ value system revolves around their most immediate needs without regard to any civilized notion of boundaries. My value system, on the other hand, respects private-property rights (that fly didn't), respects other's privacy (the mosquito didn't) and believes in acting kindly toward others (that threatening bee didn't).

There's a clash between my value systems and the bugs’.

It presents quite the quandary. By what right do I impose my values on those bugs?

I guess I can resort to the laws of our nation, which respect property rights and privacy and each person's dignity.

But did those bugs have any input with regard to those laws? Moreover, the laws are passed by a special-interest group (the humankind interest group) and tend to leave out the bugs’ concerns.

Maybe I could appeal to common belief: Everyone thinks humans have a right to kill bugs in certain circumstances. If everyone agrees, then it must be all right. But then again, some people (Tibetan Buddhists, for example) disagree. And I haven't spoken to (any bugs about the matter.

Perhaps I can argue that they're ersonal only bugs, and SCHESKE therefore they have no right to protection and, in fact, are subject to my arbitrary cruelty. Can I, therefore, torture the bugs and kill them en masse for kicks? That strikes me as wrong, and it goes against the admonitions of my parents and teachers while growing up who told me I shouldn't gratuitously kill any living thing, including bugs.

Besides, doesn't the judgment “they're only bugs” entail a system of values? Surely the bugs’ value system doesn't consider themselves as “only” bugs and justifiably subject to summary termination.

I guess I could fall back on the old “might makes right” argument that dates back at least to Thrasymychus in Plato's dialogues. But that's embarrassing. Any dolt can see that might doesn't make right. I once had a friend who as a child was threatened with a thrashing by the neighborhood bully if my friend wouldn't agree with a preposterous assertion. My friend knew the assertion was stupid, but he conceded the point to avoid the beating. That didn't make the bully right.

What to do? I simply don't see a way out of the problem. My value system versus the bugs’ value system.

If I could just appeal to something higher than a mere value system. If there were only a natural ordering of things or something like that. I could appeal to it and reason from it and show why the bugs’ value system is all wrong. I could establish the natural goodness of private property and the importance of dignity and privacy in people's lives. I could demonstrate how the bugs repeatedly violate those goods and how, being creatures of limited intelligence, there is no way to punish them effectively (that is, to teach them how to behave) and therefore that summary execution is a proper response.

But there is obviously no such natural ordering of things. Such thinking implies a hierarchy: higher and lower, good things and bad things, good ideas and dumb ideas, smart opinions and stupid opinions.

A hierarchy implies a great deal of intolerance, and intolerance is bad and therefore cannot be. Moreover, if there were any such thing, its ultimate rationale would tend to lead back to a being that created the natural order, and that raises questions about the ultimate being's nature. At that point, I'd be completely stymied. That great being, after all, could be the Great Bug who zealously protects his own. Then what?

I'd be in a heap of trouble for killing all those bugs, that's what.

I simply can't think my way out of this dilemma. The bugs are harassing me, but I can't concoct a justification for killing them.

And therefore I won't.

But I live in Michigan where mosquitoes are plentiful, flies abound and bees swarm. My life will be miserable. I'll be paralyzed with moral inaction when dealing with bugs, and the effects will redound to the detriment of my life as well as the lives of my wife and children.

Maybe I should go to school, maybe take some of those adult-education courses offered by my local public schools. Maybe then I can find an answer. Problem is, I was taught about personal value systems while in those public schools, and I've heard that they're still teaching personal value systems.

Are there any schools out there who can teach me a way out of this moral mess? Can any schools show me why I shouldn't fear the possible existence of the Great Bug?

Eric Scheske (www.ericscheske.com) is a freelance writer, a contributing editor ofGodspy and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.