Do you believe everyone on our planet is our brother? If so, how do we make laws and policies that help our brother? How do we need to change our thinking to lift the boats of all brothers?
Chicago has had about 37 children killed this year by gang violence. Black kids mostly, so who cares. Apparently no one.
Chicago wants the Olympics to come to Chicago in 2016. Who cares. All the rich people and people in power that are going to make millions from the big deals that will come down when billions are spent to construct the venue required for the Olympics. What good does this do the kids that are getting killed. Nothing, absolutely nothing.
What is important. The kids or the Olympics.
Where is our country putting the effort. Well, it is not the kids. Where is this country willing to put billions of dollars into to make everything come out all right. It is not the kids.
Where are our values in America. Where are America's priorities?
Where is our country putting the effort. Well, it is not the kids. Where is this country willing to put billions of dollars into to make everything come out all right. It is not the kids.
Where are our values in America. Where are America's priorities?
I have some great neighbors, they still have a few hill billy genes, but still they are good people. They try to raise their kids the best they can with mixed success. They do a lot of talking to their kids and they have rules and take interest in their children's lives. It is obvious they love their kids. As a parent with three grown kids I have one strong opinion about raising kids. It is more important the example you lead in living your life than all the rules than can fill a book. For example, my friends smoke. What are the odds of the children smoking?
As a country, the same thing applies. We can talk about democracy, the land of the free, the home of the brave, etc. But, when we forgo the rights of anyone our government accuses of being a terrorist with or without any evidence, then what we say doesn't mean much. When we torture prisoners, then our grand words mean nothing. When we lie about our reason to invade IRAQ then our grand words mean nothing. When we ignore the violence in our big cities like Chicago and then pretend everything is okay because we want to host the 2016 Olympics there, our words ring hollow.
When we say bring us your tired and down trodden and then let 15% of our population have very little health care and provide no childcare for single moms, our words ring hollow. When our religious south talk about being our brothers keepers in their churches and then curse the poor Mexican immigrants, their religion and our country looks pretty lame. When we claim to care about humanity and then pass drug laws that turn Mexico and many other Latin American countries into drug supply centers, one is forced to laugh at our hypocrisy.
How we care for our weakest and our most downtrodden is ultimately how the world will see us. Our battle with the terrorists of the world and the fundamentalist religions of the world is not going to be won with guns and at the moment it is not going to be won with our noble ways. We need to find our values and live them, treating everyone with fairness and with fundamental beliefs that founded this country. We have parted from our basic values before, McCarthism was not that long ago. The way we treated the Japanese living on the west coast during WWII was not that long ago. Sadly, most Americans won't even know what I am talking about since we no longer even known about our heritage.
Do a random act of kindness tomorrow, start turning around America one small step at a time.
For many religious people the answer to this question is simple, what does the Bible say, what does the Koran say, then add it to some interpretation and some updating for a centuries and vola, we have a judgment. For instance, the Bible is pretty down on homosexuals and the Koran is pretty down on women being equal. Okay, so maybe I picked some bad examples, but many religious groups have magic books that they look stuff up in to determine what is right and what is wrong.
But, what is the path for us that don't see the light, that are agnostics, or atheists, or even worse scientists or engineers. Where do we look to find out what is right and wrong. First, it is my opinion that we are born with an innate sense of right and wrong that is then reinforced or torn down by those around us, usually our parents.
I also think we can get there my a rational analysis that shows that peaceful coexistence and the traits of the human that makes that possible maximizes the possibility for survival of our species. And if that is not the ultimate goal, then the opposite path, and our destruction, seems in its own construction to be meaningless. What traits make peaceful coexistence possible: cooperation, respect, kindness, love, etc. would all seem to be right and the right thing to do.
There is yet another way. To look at mother nature, to immerse ones self in it and in its details, to find the reason for life and by example what is right and wrong. Look at any mother in nature and how they raise their children. Or wolves that mate for life and live in small communities to help each other survive. Our ants or bees and their complex societies. Or dolphins how they care for the well being of other species, even humans. All we need to know about what is right and wrong is acted out in front of us in the small amount of nature that survives our hard hand, the hard hand of its most powerful member of nature, humans.
A lot of our problems in our culture comes from our disconnection with our roots, nature. We travel on asphalt, live in buildings with artificial environments, spend little time and very little quality time with our mates and family. Vacations are spent in cars, man made amusement parks with their fake water rides, etc, eat in restaurants with their sugar heavy deserts, and never converse with another human about anything important. Our whole existence is about commercialism, the maximum extraction of commodities, fuels, etc. out of the ground for constructing our artificial worlds. We form communities like face-book and thoughts to fill in for the communities we have lost in our race for prosperity, the filling of our lives with imitations of life, which makes me think of the oxymoron of reality TV. Our aliments reflect our loss of our connection with nature, obesity and diabetes are two examples. Cancer one day will surely be linked to the vast use of chemicals that we use carelessly in our lives starting at our birth.
Right and wrong is right out your door in the spirit of the robin that comes in spring, the geese that come in the winter, or the spiders that hunt under your porch. It is with great care that we must use our intelligence in altering our world away from where nature would lead us.
