Teaching By Example

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.