"With Extreme Prejudice" - You Guessed it, Another WTF?

Readership, before I get into this Observation, let me say this. There is a LOT of shit going on in my life right now (most of it on the so-so side of the line, leaning towards FML). Of all that stuff, the one thing I can actually do anything about is a major essay (a midterm essay, in fact) that's due in my History class tomorrow night at 6:50 . . . an essay, mind you, that I haven't started. I have full confidence that I'll finish it before the deadline, but in the meantime, in true "stupidass college kid throwing his education away" fashion, I'm going to procrastinate by writing this (and perchance, even more Observations!?). So yeah. Enjoy the fruits of my procrastination/fucking-up-my-life-ery.

Anyway.

The phrase "with extreme prejudice" has always baffled me just a little bit. It's just an awkward phrase - look at it: EXTREME prejudice? Is there another, lesser, not-as-extreme version of prejudice? I wasn't around during the Civil Rights Movement and all that, but from what I've read about it, shit got pretty extreme - I mean it doesn't get much more extreme than tear gas, German Shepherds and high-pressure hoses, does it?

The term comes up a lot in military applications, and thus comes up a lot MORE in military-themed video games. I played one such game (I think it was SOCOM Fireteam Bravo on PSP), where my main objective was to infiltrate a known terrorist stronghold and neutralize the cell "with extreme prejudice." To put that in layman's terms, they wanted me to sneak into the bad guys' hideout and kill them all REALLY REALLY HARD. Which is ridiculous. Think about it - how the hell am I supposed to kill them HARD? There aren't degrees of death. Either you're dead or you're alive.

I can understand saying something like "take no prisoners" which would put me in the mind that if it moves, breathes and might have a gun, it's cool for me to shoot it repeatedly until it doesn't move or breathe anymore. But "neutralize the cell with extreme prejudice" is just silly. What do you want me to do, shoot the terrorists dead and then defecate on their bodies? Really, what more can I do to them after they're dead?

So yeah. "With extreme prejudice" is a stupid term. Bitches.

Stay classy