To Uphold and Defend the Constitution...

No matter how you look at it, President Bush has failed to keep his oath of office, and done it in spectacular fashion. He keeps saying that he took an oath to "protect the American people." What he actually swore to do was to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, but what he has done is slowly destroy that very same Constitution.

Let's assume for a moment he did, in fact, take an oath to protect the American people. In spite of all the claims he and his flunkies made at the time that no one ever considered that someone might use planes as weapons by flying them into buildings, we now know that the World Trade Center was, in fact, built to withstand such an attack. If the architects and builders could foresee such a thing in the 1970's when the idea that terrorists might attack us on our own soil seemed about as likely as $2-a-gallon gas, then the people charged with preventing it should have at least had an idea it could happen, don't you think?

The truth is, he had numerous warnings about an impending attack on the WTC before 9/11 and did nothing about it. If his oath was truly to protect the American people and he allowed (as we now know he did) the attacks to proceed (assuming he wasn't involved somehow in those attacks), then he again failed miserably to keep his oath.

If he really believes that he has a responsibility to "protect" us, it seems to me that the best way to do that is to keep his oath--the one he actually took, which was to uphold and defend the Constitution. To uphold and defend those values that made us the country that everyone wanted to come to, the beacon of freedom and opportunity to those who lived in oppression and crushing poverty. Not the country those people are fleeing because the government spies on them and throws them in prison for having the temerity to question it and its policies.

The Fourth Amendment says that: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Pretty simple, right? The language is clear enough that even you should be able to understand the intent and know that everything you are doing with your Patriot Act and warrantless wiretaps and using firemen as de facto spies, directly violates the Fourth Amendment. But that Amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, is part of the Constitution which you swore to uphold and defend. Violating the Constitution, any of it, no matter what your reason is, is a violation of the oath of office as President and makes you unfit for the office.

Cults and Religion

Thomas Wolfe said that a cult is a religion with no political power. How sad but true! Look at any of the recognized, mainstream religions of today and tell me which ones were recognized as actual religions from their inception. I can't think of any, personally.

Even the biggest one, Christianity, began as a cult, actively persecuted by the Romans as heretical and subversive. Interestingly enough, the word "atheist" was originally used by the Romans to describe Christians because of their refusal to worship the Roman pantheon of gods. Now, the Christians use it to describe anyone who refuses to subscribe to the Christian doctrine.

Emperor Constantine, who so many claim to have been the first Christian emperor, actually remained a pagan to the end, submitting to baptism only on his deathbed when he was too weak to resist any longer. He had tolerated the Christian sect because they had grown so numerous that weeding them all out had become a practical impossibility, which lent them a certain political advantage, but only after Constantine's forcible baptism was it recognized as an actual religion and elevated from cult status to that of a religion.

Since the Catholic Church became the dominant sect of Christianity, it has spawned a number of offshoots, which formed the base of the Protestant religions, but each one of those offshoots was considered a cult until time and popularity (not to mention wars and conquest) gained them a certain mainstream status.

The corruption which has contaminated virtually all of the mainstream religions is constantly driving people to seek, or form, their own spiritual groups. Most of these groups are tolerated as long as they stay "under the radar," but once they try to go public, or try to isolate themselves from society as large, they are denounced as cults, branded as dangerous, and attacked by the mainstream, who see them as a threat. A classic example is what happened in Waco, Texas in 1995, but that is such an involved subject I really can't go into it here. Suffice it to say, what we were told happened it only what the mainstream wanted us to know, and what little we were told was distorted by the media to serve the ends of the powers that be.

The danger in persecuting people who have unpopular views when it comes to religion and religious doctrine is that when those who defend themselves by adopting the tactics of a tyrant risk becoming tyrants themselves. In a country that prides itself on religious tolerance (even when that tolerance is becoming more and more illusory), such things should not be allowed to go on.

So What?

I just saw a story about a hockey player in trouble because some pictures of him "touching tongues" with another man showed up on the internet, suggesting that he might be gay. WHO CARES??? I mean, really, what business is it of mine, or yours, or anybody else, what anyone else does sexually? Unless they are molesting children or small animals, or something, why does anyone have the right to try to control anyone else's private affairs?

I know, the fundamentalist fanatics who are hijacking our values and using them for political gain say that being gay is a sin and "God hates fags," but like I've said before, I challenge any of them to point to any scripture to defend their position. Jesus never said one word about gays. In fact, he would have to have known that the Roman soldiery at large engaged in homosexual sex routinely but he healed the servant of a Roman centurion anyway. And it's interesting to note that by "servant" we should read "body servant" which presupposed that that servant be available for sex among his other duties. Being a man of his times and aware of the proclivities of the Romans who ruled his world at the times he would had to have known that the servant he was healing was, per force, gay, but he healed the man anyway, because of the centurion's faith in Him. So what does that say about his views on homosexuality? Along the same line, abortion existed in his culture as well, but he never said anything about that, either, did he?

As for gays in the military, the most feared military force ever known (the Spartans) were culturally gay--men and women were almost entirely segregated. They were all required to marry but they did not live together. The men would visit their wives in order to produce children to feed the war machine. In fact, older men were required to select a boy in training and mentor him in all things Spartan, which included sex.

And look at how many of these so-called Religious Right nuts waging their campaigns of hate and fear are turning out to be gay, themselves (Foley, comes to mind right away). Kind of reminds me of J. Edgar Hoover, spouting off about gays being such a threat to our national security, while he was spending weekends as a cross-dresser. Why do you listen to such hypocrites? Why do you care what goes on in anyone else's private life? Maybe you have so much time to be so concerned for my soul because you aren't spending enough time working on your own?

Patriotism

Edward Abbey, an American author (1927-1989) and environmental advocate, wrote "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against it's government." Today, his words seem to have been turned around. Today, it's those who defend the government, pinning flags on their lapels and stumbling through the national anthem and blindly rubber-stamping whatever Bush wants, that are considered patriots, while those of us who protest have our patriotism called into question. How does that happen, and how do we change it?

First of all, we need to recognize that EVERY ONE of us has an obligation as an American to participate in our civic processes--that means VOTE. There are countries that require their citizens to vote. In Australia, for example, you are automatically registered to vote when you apply for anything from the government, from a driver's license to financial assistance, and can be fined if there is an election in which you don't participate. France requires that workers are given the day off with pay so that they can vote. While I don't necessarily believe either of those ideas would ever work here, I think they are great ideas. Why not require every citizen to vote? What's the point in being a citizen, if not to have the right to make your voice heard? Why should people be able to partake of the fruits of liberty, when they aren't willing to make the effort to secure those fruits? When people complain about the inconvenience of having to find their particular polling place, finding a parking space, waiting in line for their turn in the booth, and actually deciding between the corrupt and the less corrupt candidates, I point out that the fact they are willing to put out enormous effort to drive to a mall, search for a parking space, wander through dozens of stores, wait in endless lines, to give their money to support corrupt corporations--for what? To buy gifts for people who will probably return them anyway? Or worse, will stick them in a closet never again to see the light of day? Given the choice of inconveniences, I would much rather choose the one that actually means something in the long run.

Americans Don't Read

When it was pointed out to John Foster Dulles that anyone who took the time to actually read all 26 volumes of the Warren Report would easily see for themselves that Oswald did not kill JFK, his response was, "Americans don't read." Sadly, that fact has been made over and over again, to our peril. This is particularly true when it comes to the two documents we claim to esteem so highly--the Constitution and the Bible. More people have read the Bible than the Constitution, but even those few who have actually read the Bible have read no more than those selected verses chosen by their Sunday School teachers. Having read the Bible from cover to cover, I have to say that anyone who believes it is God's divine word and that we should accept it as literal truth, is either stupid, or thinks the rest of us are.

To me, there are just too many inconsistencies, not to mention outright contradictions, in the New Testament, for me to accept it as literal truth. And if you do accept that it is God's divine word, to be accepted as literal truth, you have to accept ALL OF IT, not just those parts of it that support your particular position on things. If you believe that the Bible as we have it now, both Old and New Testaments, are the inspired word of God, then you must follow the tenets in both. That includes animal sacrifices for the remission of sins (and if you accept that Jesus' death fulfilled that obligation once and for all, you shouldn't keep those parts in your Bible because they are unnecessary), the stoning of adulterers and Sabbath breakers, and keeping away from menstruating women, to mention just a few. And I challenge anyone to find any Scripture in which Jesus condemns homosexuality or abortion. Yes, I know Paul ranted about gays, but he is not Jesus, and as a secondary source who started out by persecuting Christians and was a savage misogynist, he is suspect as far as I'm concerned.

And then there are all the different versions of the Bible itself--the King James, the Catholic version, the New Revised American Standard--if you compare verses side by side, you'll come away with a different understanding from each one because they didn't just paraphrase, they substantially changed the meaning of certain passages. If you think God really did write the Bible, how can you justify editing His words like that?

And when most people talk about the Constitution, they mean specifically the Bill of Rights (even though they probably haven't even read all of those either). I've been hearing a lot of talk from fundamentalist Christians running for President about "restoring the Constitution," even though they want to throw out the First Amendment. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee both want to make this a "Christian nation," which would probably require another Amendment or at least a law of some kind specifying Christianity as the State Religion. That is a direct violation of the First Amendment which states:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Plain and simple: Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion. That includes a State Religion. It's not just freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. The government can't force you to attend any church, let alone any particular church. If it can, then how are we any different from those who want to make Islam the State Religion? What's the difference between an Islamic Caliphate and a Christian United States?

We are engaged in a war not just of rockets and bombs, but of ideologies. And in any conflict of ideologies, the best way to arm yourself is with knowledge. READ the Constitution, READ the Bible, both of them, all of them, while there's still time to stop the Holy Express.

Render Unto Caesar

All the right-wing fundamentalists who have, to a much greater degree than anyone wants to admit, hijacked our government, need stop trying to drive the political bus, and do it now. Even Jesus himself made a distinction between secular and spiritual matters. Check out Matthew 22:19-22, where he talks about giving Caesar what is his, and God what is His. Ok, I know he was talking about money, but he did throw the money changers out of the temple because they did not belong there, which implies that he believed that secular concerns have NO PLACE in the Temple.

And look at what has happened every time people (even decent, deeply faithful, well-intentioned people) have let their Church take over the Government. The best known and most often cited example is the Inquisition which led to the deaths of thousands of people, but there are other examples as well. For all its anti-religious posturing, the Communists made a quasi religion of its atheist beliefs and killed countless thousands in the name of stamping out the "opiate of the masses."

Aside from all of that is the simple fact that those who would put themselves forward as leaders, should be better than those they would lead. Read Matthew 7:15-23--15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits. 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’"

Also read Matthew 7:1-5--1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye."

With all the corruption rampant in our government (not that it's anything new, just more public), why should we support any of our so-called leaders? And with all of the scandals coming out of the evangelical leadership, why should we listen to anything they have to say about the way we should live? And why should we let the two camps merge to form a theocracy that will rob us of not only our money but our spiritual salvation? To the Pat Robertsons and Ted Haggards and George Bushes of the world, I would say this: get your own house in order, before you come and tell me how to order mine.

State Department's Private Army

Somebody please tell me why is our State Department using companies like Blackwater as security forces in Iraq? What does that tell our troops, that the same government who uses support of our troops as a big stick for bullying the Congress and citizenry into letting them get away with the most reckless spending and lack of coherent strategy, doesn't trust those same troops to provide adequate protection? Instead, agencies like the State Department must turn to "private security contractors" who, as we have seen, act like renegades, safe in the knowledge that no matter how depraved they act, they won't be held accountable for any of it.

Amidst all the talk of troop levels in Iraq, there is one fact that gets little or no attention: there are as many (if not more) private security forces in Iraq than there are actual soldiers. We could pull out every one of our soldiers and there would still be more than 100,000 troops there, they just don't wear the uniform or take the oath that our soldiers do. What I want to know is why are they there? What services are they actually providing, other than guarding our ambassadors and killing Iraqi civilians? Why does our State Department trust them more than they (obviously) trust our soldiers? Why was it necessary to write a blanket immunity for these mercenaries into the Iraqi constitution?

I think that we, as Americans, need to start asking these questions and demanding answers, and not be intimidated by the prospect of having our patriotism and support of our military questioned for demanding those answers.

Homeless for the Holidays

'Tis the season once again. Every year at this time, people gather with their loved ones to share the warm of friends and family, to eat and drink and watch football, to give thanks for our many blessings and to give back some of what we have received in the form of donations to help those less fortunate.

It's a nice image isn't it? But it, like so much in our culture today, it's as fake as the plastic money we use to obtain it all. Behind this "all's right with the world" picture is a grim reality: suicide rates sky rocket this time of year and every year, there are yet more people for whom the "holidays" mean little more than another bitter reminder of how far they are from where they should be.

Keep in mind, while you are gorging on turkey and watching football or the parade, or celebrating with the people who matter most to you, that there are people out whose turkey and trimmings will come from a soup kitchen, eaten amongst strangers, provided by strangers trying to assuage their guilt at having so much when others have so little.

And don't believe the government figures on just how many homeless there are in this country. The statistics are rigged to include only the most obvious--those who are actually sleeping on the sidewalks or in the parks or in the shelters. It doesn't include those who live in "transient housing," which includes places like cheap motels, rooming houses and the couches of friends and/family, from which they can be tossed into the street at any given moment. And no one has any valid estimates of the number of people who are one or two paychecks away from being homeless but I would guess that, if we did manage to come up with an estimate, it is frighteningly high.

As for giving to any of the organized charities--don't, unless you know personally that whatever charity you are giving to actually serves the people it says it does. So many of them spend much more on "administrative costs" (i.e., their own salaries and the costs of maintaining their nice offices) than they do helping the poor that they don't deserve the name "charity." And those who won't even make the negligible effort of writing a check without a compensatory bribe (tax deduction), are as bad as those who give nothing. If you really want to be charitable, give directly to those you want to help--it doesn't have to be money; food, blankets, warm clothing, one night in a motel where they can take a shower and sleep in an actual bed could be the difference between life or death in places where winter months are bitter cold.

That there are any homeless in this country at all is a disgrace. That so many of them are men and women who put their own well-being, their very lives, at risk so that we can enjoy our holidays in peace and safety is a disgrace beyond reckoning. That we spend so much money around the world to relieve the suffering of people we will never meet, while ignoring the plight of those we pass on the street every day, is a cruel joke.

So, while you are celebrating the season, take a moment to think of those who have nothing, and do something to make a difference in their life.

Voting as an Obligation

People think that voting is a privilege--something they can exercise or not. I think that is a short-sighted, even stupid position. Voting is an OBLIGATION inherent in being a citizen--it's the one, basic right that gives any meaning to being a citizen. Even when you think--as most Americans do--that your vote doesn't count, that your one vote won't change anything, it is still incumbent upon you as a citizen to register your position. And when you vote, don't do it as one individual; go with as many friends as you can gather up and go vote as a BLOCK.

But there is more than one way to vote. One more immediate and meaningful way is to vote with your dollars. Every time you spend money, you are voting in support of the company to whom you are giving that money. Like it or not, when you shop at Wal-Mart, you are condoning the fact that their products are made by virtual slaves under sweatshop conditions. How else do you think Wal-Mart can sell so much for so much less than anyone else? (And to me, Wal-Mart is the generic name for all of the big-box stores, like Target and K-Mart--they are all the same to me.) Not to mention the fact that Wal-Mart is the beneficiary of huge amounts of corporate welfare and responsible for the loss of countless numbers of small, local businesses.

If you really want to make a difference, if you really want to change the course our country is taking, take the time to VOTE! This election may be the most important in our nation's history. This election could determine whether we continue to have even the illusion of a democracy, and even whether you will still have the right to vote (look at what's happening in Pakistan--do you really think the Administration isn't watching closely and taking notes) in the future. Vote with your dollars by buying only from those companies who actually contribute something to your community and local economy instead of milking it for whatever they can without returning anything other than token gestures. Make your voice heard, while you still can.........

Practice Run in Pakistan?

Maybe it's just the cynicism and suspicion in my nature that makes me wonder, when I watch MSM news about Pakistan, if what's going on there isn't a practice run, a little glimpse into what is in store for us here, in America, should Musharraf succeed in establishing a permanent state of martial law there. After all, the US has used proxies (bin Laden in Afghanistan and the South Vietnamese against Russia, for example) to promote its agendas in countries we could not engage directly--why not use proxies to try out its domestic agendas, too?

It makes an appalling and grim kind of sense when you think about it. When they latched onto 9-11 as the vehicle for launching their New World Order, for turning their think-tank generated, fascist, ideological daydreams into real-life nightmares for the rest of us, they made a lot of mistakes, for which they are now being called to account. Albeit, the call to account isn't being made with the force it deserves, and the penalties are likely to be far short of anything we would consider just and appropriate (like impeachment proceedings and trials for war crimes), but we should probably be grateful that it's being made at all.

Coming so close to realizing their dreams, however briefly, I doubt these people are going to abandon them because they got caught. A vision cherished so dearly for so long isn't given up without a fight (two steps forward, one back is still considered progress), it just goes underground again--or is tried out through proxies. Let some other country work out the kinks and pay the price for failure; when they get it right, you copy the playbook and run the plays yourself. It's a classic risk management strategy, something our CEO-infested government understands--much better than it understands our "quaint" attachment to the Constitution and the rights as American citizens under that Constitution.

I think we should follow the events in Pakistan closely. And we shouldn't rely on MSM for our information--we should check out what is being reported online, from around the world. The things you get from outside the US are usually much more informative and unbiased than anything MSM tells us. And keep in the back of your head this question: could it happen here? And don't kid yourself--once upon a time, the idea that the United States would emulate some of the worst abuses ever attributed to the Soviet Union or Communist China (spying on its own citizens, renditions, torture) was absolutely unthinkable, too, yet has become a fact of life for us.

9-11 or 911?

Has anyone else picked up on the irony in the fact that the single biggest assault on our nation since 1812 happened on a date with the name digits as the number you use to call for help in an emergency? I think I remember a few people making some vague reference, but no one has ever come right out and said, "Hey, what a coincidence! I wonder if they were trying to tell us more than that they hate us for our freedom?"

Think about it: out of the 365 days of the year those terrorists could have chosen for their attack, they picked that particular day? I mean, the only difference between 9-11 and 911 is a single hyphen--what are the odds? And I find it hard to believe that anyone who could plan and carry out something of that magnitude, with so many details to manage and coordinate, would simply pick a date at random, don't you? I think that if you are going to use an event to send a message, it makes a greater impact if you include the date as part of the message, right? Like bombing a shopping mall at Christmas to protest the way our sacred days have been reduced to designated shopping days dressed up in hollow rituals.

So what would be the message? Why would someone fly planes into buildings primarily occupied by companies whose primary focus was money, on 9-11? Could it be that whoever it was (and I'm not convinced it was bin Laden--the only evidence we have is a video that I think is extremely suspect) was trying to send us a wake up call? Kind of a, "Hey, look at what your government is doing--it's letting these companies rob you blind, it's spying on your phone calls and Internet traffic, and is doing atrocious things around the world in your name. Wake up and do something about it because it's only going to get worse it you don't stop them now!"

If that was the message, we missed it. Instead of being the ice water that shocks us into awareness, it was a punch that knocked us to the mat. Instead of looking closer into the coup d'etat that turned our representative democracy into an imperial dictatorship, we rallied around the flag and our naked emperor; instead of letting our anger drive us toward demanding the truth, we let our fear force us into accepting a politically motivated lie; instead of clinging to the ideals and values that we, as Americans, have always cherished, we became willing to surrender our freedoms in exchange for security. And as Ben Franklin said, those who are willing to trade liberty for security, deserve and will have neither.

Personally, though, I think it's more like the man who will rob and rape a woman, then hand her a phone and tell her to call the cops because he is a cop and he knows that when his fellow officers show up, they are more likely to arrest her for trying to file a false police report than they are to arrest their buddy for his crime.

After all, anyone cynical enough to gut the Clean Air Act with something called the Clear Skies Initiative, is cynical enough to attack his own citizens (or at the very least, allow them to be attacked) on a day whose numbers match our emergency assistance line, don't you think?

The Value of Pain and Suffering

Carl Jung said that the beginning of mental illness lay in the avoidance of legitimate suffering. That being oh-so-sad-but-true, we are obviously a very mentally ill nation. Americans will go to almost any lengths to avoid any kind of suffering--just look at the proliferation of prescription drugs to alleviate depression, anxiety, pain, etc. A pill for every ill, indeed.

Pain, fear, guilt, anger, are all uncomfortable and unpleasant feelings to deal with. It's only natural to want to avoid suffering--the problem is that we can't. They are necessary to our growth as human beings and we avoid them at our peril. They are flashing red warning lights that something is wrong--in our bodies, our minds, our souls--and needs to be addressed. The intensity of the emotion indicates the urgency of addressing the problem.

We can avoid these emotions to a certain extent by using alcohol or drugs, but it's a short-term solution at best. Worse yet, chemically-assisted avoidance only brings with it another range of problems, which compounds the original problem and accelerates our ultimate self-destruction.

It's difficult to come to terms with such powerful, negative emotions precisely because they are powerful--they are primal forces in a modern world and they remind us that maybe, just maybe, we aren't so civilized after all. But we lock up so much of our creative and positive energy in trying to contain and deny these primitive, primal, uncomfortable emotions that we don't leave ourselves much that we can actually use to accomplish the great things we want to accomplish in our lives and our world.

It's also a matter of ego--we hate to admit that sometimes we hurt each other. We like to see ourselves as good people and we think that admitting the fact that sometimes we act spitefully would mean we aren't such good people after all. Why? What it wrong with admitting that we are human beings? Mortal, morally-fragile creatures who are driven as much by their emotions as by their minds?

I agree with Jung that avoiding legitimate suffering leads to mental illness. I have known a lot of people who are "mentally ill" and just about every one of them has some trauma in their life that they refuse to deal with. I understand why they do it--for some people, the pain or grief or anger or guilt is simply too powerful for them to come to terms with. But as hard as it is to face our suffering, to accept and even embrace it our negative emotions, it is absolutely necessary if we are ever going to be whole and healthy, either as individuals or a nation.

I think our nation is suffering from a collective case of PTSD, reeling from the shock of an attack that we did not see coming (although we would have, if we'd cared enough about anything outside our own narrow sphere of self-interest, but that's a topic for another day.) We need to stop paying mere lip-service to the suffering that began, for a lot of us, on 911 and actually start using those primal emotions as a motivation for action instead of an excuse for cowardice and inaction.

Morals and Ethics

I have always insisted that there is a difference between morals and ethics, and it’s always confused people. To most people, morals and ethics are the same thing, even though they are actually opposites. Morals are spiritual standards, imposed by an external force (God, usually), which are subject to change (whenever the imposing force decides such changes are expedient) and can even conflict with each other. Ethics are practical standards, imposed by internal forces (personal integrity and reason), which rarely change and are consistent.

Take the issue of abortion: Morals (in this case, standards imposed by religious leaders) stress the quantity of life; ethics stress the quality of life. “Right-to-life” people are moral, but they are not particularly ethical--they protest abortion on the principle that abortion is murder, but it’s okay to bomb abortion clinics and murder doctors. They picket clinics in the name of defending the right of unwanted babies to be born regardless of the situation they will be born into. Yet these same people who insist on the “right-to-life” of every unborn child, generally support capital punishment and engaging in wars. To me, there is no difference between the taking of a life whether it’s done by a doctor, the State, or the Armed Forces. Ethics (standards imposed by personal integrity) stress that only those who have to bear the responsibility for their decisions have the right to make those decisions. They realize that forcing women to have children they can’t properly provide for, either financially or emotionally, condemns both the mother and the child (and whatever children she may already have) to a life of unnecessary suffering.

But it’s not really about the value of life itself; it’s about being able to impose your will on other people. The Church tells you a particular thing is wrong, rather than allowing you to decide for yourself, based on your individual circumstances.

Look at any “values” issue and think about the agenda it truly serves. Is it moral, or is it ethical? Is it based in a religious ideology trying to enforce a spiritual authority, or on personal integrity and the right of every individual to make their own decisions in matters that affect their own lives? Do you really want the government interfering in your intimate, personal matters? Once you give it that power, it will never give it up--what happens when it decides that you and your group (whatever it is) is a problem and needs to be eliminated? What if the government decides that your church is a cult? What if the government decides it should choose who you marry, what schools your children can go to (or whether you can have children at all), where you will work and for what wage? What if it decides to pass an amendment nullifying the second amendment because it’s too dangerous to allow ordinary citizens to own guns--after all, the terrorists might steal them and use them to harm us!!

I had a very strange dream several years ago and it is just as clear today:

I was in a baseball stadium in my home town. The stadium was full of people wearing buttons that said “Us.” All across the field where teams used to play baseball, were crosses, to which were nailed people wearing buttons that said “Them.” These crosses were set on fire and allowed to burn to ashes while the people nailed to them screamed out their agony and the people in the stands cheered with forced approval. From time to time, men in long black robes would go through the stands, rounding up everyone whose “Us” button had magically changed to a “Them” button. New crosses would be set up and people nailed to them and set alight. This went on and on until the stands were empty and only the men in the long black robes were left. They promptly began trying to kill each other.

It took me a minute of thinking to figure out what the dream meant. If you haven’t figured it out, it’s simply this: when you live in an Us-or-Them society, sooner or later, everyone is one of “Them,” including you.

Politically Correct--Mentally Dishonest

I wish we could go back to the time before all this “politically correct” nonsense. To a time before people started dreaming up euphemisms for every uncomfortable word and thought (like “aggressive interrogation” when we mean “torture” or a “campaign contribution” when we mean a “bribe”) or to disguise the fact that they feel inadequate by dreaming up ways to make themselves or what they do sound important (like “custodial engineer” when we mean “janitor”). What happened to the days when people spoke simply, directly, honestly? The days when you could call something what it was without having to worry about finding yourself in serious trouble because you hurt someone’s precious feelings?

The language we use, regardless of its origin, reveals much of how we think. If we use plain words to express simple thoughts in an honest and open way, the people we are speaking to able to understand us clearly. It shows that we respect the people we are trying to communicate with by because we tell them the truth in terms they can easily understand. When we use euphemisms, we insult the people we are talking to because we are implying that they either cannot understand what we really mean or that they cannot handle the truth when it is uncomfortable or unpleasant.

I’m not saying that we should not be considerate of others’ feelings in how we speak; I am saying that we should not consider those feelings to the point of being insulting or dishonest. Trying to soften a painful truth with pretty words does not make it any less painful, it only distances us from the pain which makes it much harder to come to terms with. Those who would chose a pretty lie over a painful truth do a disservice to the truth and to themselves.
There are some pretty simple rules that I follow when talking to other people:

1. Say what you mean and mean what you say. For example, always apologize when you can do it honestly, but never just because someone else insists that you do.
2. Speak clearly, using simple words to convey a clear thought. Impress people with your integrity, not your vocabulary.
3. Do not be afraid to call things what they are. For example, if someone is a cheat and a liar, don’t say they are “ethically challenged.”
4. Silence is sometimes the best answer. It’s better to say nothing than to tell a lie.
5. Don’t make other people lie by asking questions to which you can’t handle an honest answer. Don’t ask “does this make me look fat?” if you can’t handle being told that it does.
6. When someone asks you a question, especially about something you did or said, answer it honestly and directly. If your first impulse is to lie, for whatever reason, it's a tacit admission that you know what you did or said was wrong and you don't want to admit it.