An Economic Recovery Plan

An Economic Recovery Plan:

A most unusual dilemma facing the American Public today is the inability for most of us to take an intelligent position on specific programs to solve global warming, the economic crisis, the varied genocidal conflicts across the globe, terrorism, etc. When someone asks if I support the Obama economic stimulus package I just shrug. Even those with advanced degrees on the subject differ. It is simply over my head. But not surprisingly I see the problem in a much larger context, a context which I think is logically defensible and within the limits of less professorial economic wizzardliness.

For there to be economic recovery in America, and elsewhere across the globe, there are essentially 4 factors which hold the key. It starts with controlling, and in fact reducing, world human populations. In the absence of this there can be no recovery. All the other major problems facing humans at this stage in the evolutionary period originate with overpopulation. It is overpopulation which harms the atmosphere, drives climate change, depletes our natural resources, is driving a record number of species into extinction, and pits one group against another in a battle for scarce resources, whether these battles be over food, land, housing, health care, whatever----overpopulation is behind all of it.

The second factor is resources. Without the efficient use of the natural resources available for our current population, there is no way all humans can live a decent life. The imbalance---the difference between the affluent and the poor is so great today that social upheaval is a virtual given. This disparity, between the haves and the have nots, will drive terrorism to ever more sophisticated and indefensible levels. All the smart missiles and all the bombs amassed by the all mighty will become less and less useful to control foreign populations. We already saw that in Vietnam, the Russians saw it in Afghanistan, and the U.S. is seeing it now in Iraq and Afghanistan. When it comes to bringing any kind of peace and prosperity to situations like Haiti, the Congo, Somalia, the Palestinian West Bank, New Orleans, inner cities across our own land, etc. we have become more the problem than any solution. And this is sad, really sad.

The third factor is empathy. The hostility between varied religious groups, the rich and the poor, political adversaries, workers versus management, varied culture vs varied culture, and nation vs nation has never been so angry. The great battles on a battlefield or at sea between uniformed national armies is pretty much a thing of the past. The battles now have settled into the trenches with unidentifiable enemies who wear no uniform, and are less and less likely to be authorized by any established government.

The fourth factor is a more fair distribution of national wealth. There is nothing wrong with accumulated EARNED wealth. The problem begins when the accumulated EARNED wealth is allowed to accumulate as INHERITED wealth. The amassment of wealth in the hands of inherited clans is simply a poison pill to the economic well being of society in general. This accumulation of more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer has been the down fall of just about every civilized society in history. When this first occurred in our own country, in the late 1800's and early 1900's, stiff inheritance taxes were imposed to break up massive accumulation of wealth by families. Today 1% of the people in the U.S. own 90% of the wealth. I always wonder about this figure, but see it all the time in varied forms sometimes it is 1% or 5%, but no matter, the problem is self evident. And it is simply unethical. Wealth should always be EARNED. Bill Gates has more wealth than the accumulated wealth of the bottom 20% of the countries in the world (or the bottom 20 countries in the world, forget which) and for his son to inherit this kind of wealth is an ethical abomination. Andrew Carnegie had it right---aside from modest transfer of wealth to family offspring, all other wealth should be returned to the society form whence it came so that the less fortunate have a chance to acquire earned wealth.

FURTHER ELABORATONS:

Let us face the truth. There are not enough planetary resources available here on this earth for everyone to live the kind of life many Americans now live. So one can just forget the babble about what kind of government, or which religion, or which ethnic group can bring peace and prosperity to this or that land. They can't. It is sadly illogical to think they can. The lines are every day being drawn in the sand, technology is increasingly available to give dissidents---over this or that issue---across the globe, the ability to sabotage the lives and material structures of any perceived enemy, and the enemy is increasingly the haves or the have nots.

Those who pass off these tough economic times as just another cyclical recession to be rode out with patience are, in my opinion, wrong. The causes of this global recession are far different from the causes of economic recessions of the past. The differences are listed above. If you wanted to run, get away, start anew where the hell would you run? There are no more unpopulated continents to escape to---Africa, South America, the United States, Canada, South Pacific Islands, Australia---you name it----the escape routes on this planet are closed. Exotic lands, with strange people, and unique cultures have succumbed to global common denominators. Land in about any major airport or city anywhere and you would be hard put to say what continent you have arrived on---and you could stay in the same kind of hotel or eat at the same kind of restaurant or drive the same kind of car as most any place else. We really are all in the same boat today if you are among the affluent anywhere. Many of today's affluent, of every ethnic and national ilk, travel all over the globe all the time. But hidden within all this affluence and extravagant lifestyles are economic pressures that are rather quickly reducing the advanced civilized countries to third world slave labor economies. Aside from the moral depravity of using slave labor in foreign lands to produce cheap goods for the affluent across the globe, this practice alone ensures the disparity between the affluent and the poor will grow exponentially, in every country across the globe. Despite the arrogant ignorance of people like George W. Bush, it is us---the current affluents of the world----who are running but cannot hide, have amassed wealth which we cannot protect from the growing masses of have nots, and in the end---with no control over population pressures----chaos of the nature seen in those countries we frequently have invaded, will be generated from within our own population. Non living wages can never be a widespread reality without the bubble bursting. Instilling in the young across the globe the idea that violence is the solution to conflict is, by any realistic definition, a self destructive policy. You might be able to kick the shit out of a few and get away with it, but you cannot kick the shit of the many, in more and more places, with more and more deaths, wounded, displaced families, homeless families, unemployed persons, and all this mixed with religious intolerance---- and expect any victory. When George Bush talks of victory it is the usual George Bush talking out of his ass. Anyone who envisions a peaceful and prosperous Iraq from all of this use of violence to subdue whole populations has the brain power of a shrew. The national political mentality in the whole Middle East is simply REVENGE. All else is secondary. Justice is defined as revenge, politics is defined not by socialism or capitalism, or monarchy or any other form of government but by REVENGE and CONTROL over your enemies and control over the wealth of your country.

Human life today, for all of us, has been reduced to some sort of abstract notion that applies within the small self centered radius now defined by family values. 100 million people will starve to death in the next few years and it becomes just another statistic which applies to some one else's back yard, someone else's family values. We killed 2 million Vietnamese in the name of necessity, will reach that goal in Iraq even if others have to complete the massacre themselves, and now we are being told that 'victory' in Afghanistan necessitates leveling that country into the stone age. It is already in the stone age thanks to a century of occupation by varied foreign armies. The industrial military complex grew to exactly what Eisenhower feared, and this monster is now completely out of control, driving our foreign policy like some sort of modern Attila the Hun. God save us all, at home here, and those abroad.

With the above bleak, but I sense nakedly honest appraisal of our human species status at this point in evolutionary history, I now attempt to list the actions for any real economic recovery.

Every single nation on this planet ought to be required by the UN to implement realistic and effective population control measures. Ancient religious dogma be damned. The idea that God has ordered the human species to self destruct is absurd. "Go forth and multiply and have dominion over other animals" was written back when there were few humans on the earth. Like in many other areas of human behavior, human religious prophets and authors of various ilk, have weaved together a wide assortment of dogmas that have nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with nonsensical rituals and behavior restrictions. Now nations across the globe, in the interests of human survival, must find the strength to declare human survival trumps religious dogma, that the good of mankind super-cedes religious dogmas. Being limited to bearing and raising two children is challenge enough and should be enforced. If a couple wants a larger herd of kids to raise let them adopt. How this is to be enforced is up to varied nations. China enforced population control measures and it's economic fortunes rose exponentially, albeit they still have a long ways to go or they will lose every bit of the progress. Failure to implement population control measures should result in world wide economic boycott and a refusal to grant passports to any citizens from such a country. There can be no fooling around with this problem. If it is not already too late, the time is short. No one is saying here that the human species will disappear, but Mother Nature bats last, and every species which becomes overpopulated has been depopulated in the cruelest of fashions. Man is the first species with the intellectual capacity to control it's own population growth, and failure to do so by putting our heads in the sand and wrapping ourselves in warped religious dogma is a pathetic betrayal of our innate ability to problem solve.

The second problem---that of protecting natural resources of the earth---is really a matter of efficient use of available resources. That some people cannot live like human pigs at a trough when it comes to the use of our natural resources is a no brainer. That time is past, given the current population on this planet. Some wasteful extravagances need to be curtailed so others can have access to these resources. The wasteful use of oil these past few decades by arrogant self serving notions that we 'have to have' large gas inefficient SUVs because a family might once in a while need to haul something is just pitiful. Maybe, just once in a while, they can rent or truck or have something delivered. Maybe, just once in a while, profits should bend to the common good. Natural resources should not be a play toy of private enterprise, manipulated by unscrupulous corporations to pile up huge profits via unrestricted capitalism. The people should own the natural resources and that means government owned. At least then people have the opportunity to vote out of office those who abuse our natural resources. We have had a ghastly picture of what happens when private enterprise, self regulated, depletes our natural resources for outrageous profit. If there is going to be a global economy, which is inescapable, then there need be global regulation of natural resources. How best to do this is for others smarter than I to figure out. But it just has to be done.

And finally, empathy for others has to become the operative force in human ethics. If we let the evolutionary law "survival of the fittest" operate as it does with the lower species, most of humanity will suffer cruel consequences, and increasingly large numbers of people are already suffering such consequences. Yes, sanctity of life is sacrosanct. Not just our own lives or the lives of others just like us, but all life generated by God's created evolutionary process. For life on this planet to be properly respected requires responsible human reproduction. Not reproduction left up to the whims and hormonal urges of momentary passions, misguided ignorant baby machines, and macho nitwits. Accepting responsibility is always a prerequisite for human evolutionary progress. With lack of human responsibility comes the endangerment of massive portions of the human species.

Aside from responsible reproduction humans have an ethical responsibility dictated by the universal innate moral principle of the Golden Rule---do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We all know that, Barack Obama knows that, and Barack Obama got elected because the better angels of our collective human ethics overcame our collective self centered indifference and distrust of others. But vague empathy will not be enough, and only time will show how much real empathy in meaningful, sharing, and protective ways can be harnessed and properly directed to salvage a future for life on our planet.

All of those lucky enough to be among the affluent need to seriously accept when enough is enough. When population is under control more can be back in; but until then, enough need be enough for the affluent, so enough will be enough for the non affluent. Materialism as the God of our actions needs to give way to empathy for others as the God of human salvation---literally, not in some sort of vague ethereal religious way seeped in rituals and prayers and gated off, one way or another, from the realities of human desperation across our globe.

CONCLUSION:

We cannot get the answers right until we frame the questions properly. So far we treat the symptoms with patch work quilts of temporary alleviations. We have become masters of the Ultimate Stall. Our vision is myopic, it is fatal to future generations and large segments of our current generation. James Baldwin said it best, although referring to race relations instead of these problems: "This failure to look reality in the face diminishes a nation, as it diminishes a person, and it can only be described as unmanly.....If we are not capable (the human species) of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations,"

WHO AM I? (DOES IT MATTER?)

Who Am I? (Does It Matter)?

I am what I am seems final enough but really says nothing. That seems to characterize a lot of what we say or do or think. Can something ever be nothing? I guess not. But what, of all our somethings, are ever important? Now that is scary. We put a lot of time and effort into our lives and yet, everyday on a highway, or big city, or wherever there are huge crowds, we are reminded that amongst all these nondescript nobodies we too, from the perspective of all the others, are just a Nothingburger. If we died at the moment, the world would hardly notice, hardly care, hardly be the less of for it, and after one generation even memories of us would be extinct. In that respect we have been hoodwinked---life is a farce.

Of course to each of us life is hardly a farce. To each of us our lives mean a lot---like everything. The basic trouble with life is it has no permanence and we change throughout our lives. Who we are today is not who we were yesterday and certainly not many yesterdays ago. My memory of real young days is not as good as that of many others. When I was a youngster it was tough to know which end was up and thanks to a different era I was free to commingle with all sorts of characters. Even when like 7 or 8 it was like "be sure to be home by supper" as I went out the door. My best friend in those early years was my dog Buff. He would listen to my young babble, he liked to wrestle to see if he could get my hat, and I taught him a lot of cool tricks which mainly involved bothering others---like going from bus stop to bus stop and grabbing kids lunches or hats and running in circles with it to taunt them. Well, it was funny to me. Buff loved to roam and we sure did---everywhere was an adventure. The trouble is, his roaming range was like 3 miles and his funny ha-ha's would get him a ride home in a police car. Trouble was, he thought that was neat too. The relationship imploded when my parents were forced to give him to some farmer far away. I don't know that I ever fully recovered from that.

Quickly I learned a lot of life is loss. I know, the important thing is to try, but the goal is to win. There is often little choice so we learn throughout life to cope with losses---we all can't be a Terrell Owens and bulldoze our way to the top. Cope! What a useless word. You survive losses, you don't cope. I don't ever accept the loss of anything, I just regret the loss and that regret is forever. With every loss a little bit of yourself dies in the process. In the early years the growth is faster than the losses, but as time goes on the losses exceed any growth.. If you live long enough you have little left to lose.

Kids today are micromanaged, often their day is programmed for them, and the parents know their whereabouts every minute of the day. With cell phones the contact must be insufferable. It is no wonder that for many kids today their closest friends, their best friends, their most constant companion, are one or both parents. Is that good? Beats me. In my day your friends were your friends and your parents were your parents and the two roles didn't get too mixed up. Your parents set limits and it was a given that your mother didn't approve of hardly anything you thought was a good idea. You had all the opportunity to fall on your face, and you did, and then your parents would say 'I warned you'. But you never were convinced they knew as much as you did. And you sure as hell didn't tell them all that you knew about a lot of things.

In my case my mother worried about everything, wanted to control everything, and my dad was more laid back and preferred I learn from experience. "He knows better and has to learn for himself or be a failure in life." My mother valued control, my father valued independence. My neighborhood friends were the ones with whom I molded my own unique personality. Fortunately they were a perfect assemblage of playmates for me. Each of us brought out the best in the others, and everything we did seemed awfully important although for the most part none of it was much more than adolescent nonsense. Those friendships lasted a long time, for many decades. Of course people change with time and with the changes come a loss of current relevance. Any group can only rehash old times up to a point and with little 'new' times on the docket, it becomes more and more like old high school reunions---reflections of a past long since gone. Life is a lot of good memories and good byes.

Aside from my close neighborhood friends I had intersting chapters of life with some diverse characters. All of us are characters, so to me that word is not slander. I learned early on that diverse characters are interesting to be around and I learned things. Is it important to learn these things? I don't know, how important are most things we learn? I became friends with a kid named Charlie from Crotonville, the bad part of town and my dad would drop me off to spend the day with Charlie. That crowd had a whole different set of values, priorities, and attitude than others from my part of town. I guess fortunately for me Charlie didn't really drag me around much with the Crotonville crowd but he told me the kind of things they did, a lot of which was bad behavior like stealing and sexual things. I knew these kids from school but not really, they kept to themselves and I kept to myself. One of them attended my Sunday School but he was out of his element there. No one in the church, including the minister, mixed with him, so the kid was just present. I remember once the electricity went off in the church for a while and he took the opportunity to feel up one of the girls in the class. Back then, stuff like that happened and no one would report it. Once I heard he disrobed a fat girl in the alley behind the movie theatre. I didn't know what to think. He really did? Wow. And he got away with it? Amazing. Another not real close friend in my neighborhood, the poor area, had a girlfriend with huge breasts and he used to drop quarters down her blouse and fish them out with his hands. I guess she really needed a friend and despite the inappropriateness of the friendship it seemed to be a real friendship. I never knew what to make of this stuff then, and still don't today. Sex was difficult to comprehend back then and no more comprehendible today. Human sex might just reflect God's sense of humor. Then there was a Jewish friend who was another friend I sometimes visited. I was shocked to find his parents walked around the house naked. I tried to pretend I didn't notice or wasn't shocked. Life can surely be diverse.

Another friend from the neighborhood, who was closer to me than anyone else, was smart, but kind of mean-spirited and odd. I don't know what odd means, we all are odd. He would make little home made bombs and wired up a chair so he could shock his brother; halloween was his favorite so he could throw rotten tomatoes all over the place, etc. Once I told a close friend's mother that this odd guy had put a bomb in her woodpile and she grabbed a broom and hit him over the head with it, telling him never to come in her yard again. I thought that was funny. About as funny as the time my good friend and I threw our bikes together to make a lot of noise and then my friend stood next to his bike all covered with ketchup. His mom had a near heart attack. The truth is his mom was the best friend a group of neighborhood kids could have. We always met at her home because we could be ourselves and her presence was no threat to us. She seemed to understand kids and was amused by our meaningless banter, dumb behavior, and endless boredom. The daily question for us kids back then was, "What do you want to do?" It might take two hours of debate to decide, but whatever it ended up being, we took it seriously and had fun. We learned that even doing nothing could be fun. Things are different today. KIds get their fun from the internet and TV. We had a TV too, but just one back in those days and you watched what the family agreed to watch. Most of it was garbage by today's standards but we loved it. Maybe we were just a bit retarded back in those days.

Some things were the same, like it was cool to smoke and get drunk. Fortunately, I chose to smoke those small plastic tipped cigars thinking that made me look more gangster like than I was. It fooled no one. Adolescent emotions and alcohol made for times which at the time seemed wild and exciting, mostly hilarious. I think if I were around myself and my friends at that time now, when everyone was drunk or high, I would find it pathetically boorish. But that is youth. Behave like, talk like, and be a dumb ass is always the height of coolness for the young. At an older age we just behave like, talk like, and be a dumb ass in more subdued and polished ways---a more professorial dumb ass. Of course neither age group is fooled by the other. A dumb ass of a different color is still a dumb ass.

Be all this as it may, we spend so much of our youth trying to figure out who we are, then during our productive years we believe we know exactly who we are, and then in the terminational years we end up wondering once again who we are, and even worse, whether it matters at all. There is a lot of truth to the observation if you live long enough you will become twice a child. I think the truth is that we are what we are only at particular moments in time. Change is always the operative word in our life. We are not even, at the same age, the same person in different situations. One of the enigmas of even thinking about an afterlife is which of our personas in life would exist in any afterlife? What age mentality would we have? Which friends or pets or whatever would we have? Which spouse would you have? Would you still dislike the same people? Okay, of course those you don't like won't be there. These are all dumb questions with no smart answers.

I guess I think I know who I am even though I really am not capable of knowing the answer. Neither are others since others will differ widely on who I am---you know, the real me. I remember some TV show in which the host would say at the end, "Will the real _______ step forward". If things change perpetually how can there ever be a real me? No one is the same person at 70 as they were at 20. So which one is the fake? I supported the Vietnam War and would never support such a thing again. So which is the real me? I will leave the world and all the DNA molecules which made up the real me will still be on earth. But I will not be. So who the hell then am I? If we are not the sum total of all our DNA molecules what else can we be? There must be another dimension to life which is beyond our comprehension. I wonder what percent of anything in life is ever within our capabilities to comprehend? If you know more than me that probably isn't saying much. Neither of us really knows much at all.

So who am I? After all these years I still am not sure. I guess just part of the current state of evolution. Do I matter? Well, I guess as much as you matter. Does anyone matter? In one sense all participants in God's evolutionary process matter. If you are going to take a deck of cards and keep throwing them on the floor until they all line up a certain way then I guess each card matters. Evolution is a function of the genetic spinning wheel. We are all cogs in the wheel. The game can hardly be played if the only cogs are the winners. Most of us are basically losers, but the few winners can't be winners if the rest of us are not in the game. You are somebody if you took the cards dealt you and managed to enjoy a productive life. You are an ethical somebody if you managed, in the process, to make life better for those with whom you came in contact. Mine is not an ethical life if I look back and see victims strewn in the wake of my path. I and my body are not the same. And the I keeps changing. When the body fails to house the I, where did the I go? There are dimensions of life here beyond my grasp. Fair enough, one less thing to worry about, one less voluminous musing to write. Time for a nap.

Nap over and I knew when I started this little treatise nothing brilliant would emerge. But every treatise needs some sort of conclusion. So who am I? Who are You? For me, whatever I believe, it has to be based on logic and/or fact. We know enough facts about evolution now that clearly humans have arrived on the scene via the evolutionary process. There is zero evidence for any direct creation. The earth and life on the earth exist. For every gift there has to be a gift giver and in this case the Creator of this evolutionary process I call God. The process is brilliant and the progress over eons of time ever so amazing. Whether God ever overrules the laws of evolution is purely speculative. I don't see much evidence for it. If you get shot through the head you die. No sense blaming God for not intervening and it would be inane to suggest God singled you out to get shot. So we ought to quit mumbling that God acts in mysterious ways and your getting shot was God's will. God's will is not running evolution. The process and the laws governing that process run evolution, God just created the process.

I am sure, back as a teenager, when I did the only athletic thing of much merit and set the course record on a crosscountry course, I probably thanked God for giving me the ability to run fast for a long time in order to accomplish this. That is so self centered. Evolution is driven by chance and then survival of the fittest takes over. The notion that God looked down upon this earth and said to me "You know, I have picked you out to run faster and longer than others so you can set the course record" is just illogical. My friend from Crontonville got killed in a car accident in his late teens. God didn't single him out to die that way. I have a cousin dying a slow ghastly death from a wasting muscle disease and God did not single her out to die this way. We ought to quit treating God as some sort of American Idol contest judge.

Thus, by chance in God's created evolutionary process, and driven by the laws of evolution I arrived alive on this earth. The rest was genetics, environment, and luck. What I, and other humans have, that other animals do not have, is a strong innate ethical being. We know, in varying degrees, right from wrong. Evolution is less cruel to other animals because they have no concept of death. I tend to get attached to animals in nature or as pets and it pains me to realize, for example, how a favorite deer in the forest is likely to meet their death. But I force myself to realize death is so much more terrifying for humans because we understand the consequences of injury. I have suffered few traumatic injuries in my life, but once I was konked over the head with a piece of concrete in an attempted robbery. While it required a lot of stitches at no point was it the pain that was overbearing. Rather it was the thoughts of whether I would bleed to death or become unconscious, or was I dying etc. Other animals don't have these advanced concepts with which to deal in times of injury. That is why empathy is an ethical necessity for humans thrown into this evolutionary process. Without empathy, the evolutionary process is very cruel to the human species. Of course the fittest will survive and the evolutionary process continue, but for the first time there is a need to protect the unfit, as best we can, from the misfortunes assigned to their role in this process. To alleviate unnecessary suffering among humans is justice and there is no justice without empathy. Thus, whatever else I might be or have achieved at any point in my life is controlled by the laws of evolution except my empathy toward others. This may be the only essence of ourselves which we can say we earned. Thus, I am what I am, and most of it is of little note, except for my empathy, and that is self developed for the most part, and the real measure of anyone from an ethical standpoint. In that sense we have a purpose in life and that is to help others along the way, to protect the vulnerable, to share with those in need, to comfort those in distress, to understand those different from ourselves. In the end that's all we can hope to understand.

THE AVANT-COURIER OF JUSTICE

The Avant-Courier of Justice

On the last musing I focused on justice and freedom, mostly justice---and touched on empathy. On further thought I think justice starts with empathy. No empathy, probably little justice. It is hard to be fair to someone, or any group, you don't like. And the dislike doesn't have to be of a personal nature. The Jews or Vietnamese or any of the recent genocidal mass killings were, for the most part, irrelevant to the personal attributes of the victims. For injustice to exist there doesn't always have to be any burning dislike, it may exist for purely selfish advantages. Slavery was useful to the owner. The usefulness of slavery simply trumped any justice or right to freedom. Modern day slavery thrives for the same reason. The slave labor in the third world countries produces cheap goods for the affluent across the globe. Empathy for these foreign slave laborers can wait. Justice can wait. And without justice there is no real freedom. Justice can be denied because a person or group is personally disliked, because the injustice produces a benefit for those controlling the injustice, or the religious/political bent of others is contrary to the political/religious bent of those controlling the justice. The make-up of the Supreme Court is invaluable because it is through this avenue the extent of justice can be controlled.

At any rate, the common thread upon which all this rests is empathy. Of course empathy has its limits. It is hard, in my mind, to have empathy with those who show little empathy for diversity or the less fortunate. Kindnesses to those with whom you have little in common are the seeds of contentment. If one cannot feel empathy with diversity one cannot be contented. There will always be all kinds of enemies to detest, control, keep at a distance, and punish. Therein lies the irony of blind energetic adherence to inherited religious dogma. By definition, others cannot be tolerated if they, in your eyes, are not doing God's will according to your own inherited faith based religious beliefs. It doesn't always have to be religious intolerance. There is cultural intolerance----even down to differences in dress, music, lifestyles, etc. In the absence of empathy there are endless battles to be fought, an endless build up of emotional hostility directed at others. To get relief you then need to wall yourself off from those who generate the hostile feelings and avoid contact with them. With today's mass media, this is difficult. These irrirtants will be in your face, one way or another.

Sometimes we settle for instituting laws or regulations which will at least make these irritating persons appear to be, or act according to, our liking---so we make dress codes, or make certain drugs illegal, or make certain areas inaccessible to them, or limit their privileges or rights, etc. To make them suffer brings some relief. To reign them in provides us with a sense of power. Justice is irrelevant under the circumstances. All this rampant lack of empathy does is to create divisive solidarity among diverse groups and especially the targeted group. This lack of empathy creates social solidarity amongst the designated victims and their social solidarity leads to open conflict and open conflict follows an uncertain path. Nothing good ever comes from lack of empathy. Having said all this, there is nothing in empathy which implies tolerating injustice or unethical behavior. BUT, ethical behavior, in any logical sense, is defined by the golden rule---do unto others as you would have them do unto you. All else is human contrived dogma.

It is very difficult to analyze the origins and distribution of empathy. Some people thrive on hunting, others feel too much merciful compassion for the hunted animals to be energetic hunters. Some soldiers thrive on combat and killing, others get sick to their stomach over all of it. Some get purple hearts, others get post war traumatic syndromes. Some thrive on movies with gore and violence, others avoid such movies. The most empathic parents can end up with totally different sons on the empathy scales. Thus the issue of empathy is clouded in mystery. It is not clear, for example, that empathy can be taught in a classroom. How do you really reach those who lack empathy toward diversity? I can't say I have really seen too many people with little empathy toward others change much over time. On the other hand, generations tend to change and always in the direction of justice. An examination of history, at least in retrospect, shows that injustices defended by one generation tend to be acted on and corrected by succeeding generations. One of the blessings of youth is their willingness to be open minded and more objective about the injustices supported by their parents or society in general. Were it not for the open-mindedness and rebelliousness of youth justice would be hard to prevail. Issues like slavery, women's right to vote, segregation etc. were always were given justice by the youth of the next generations. And even today, on issues like gay rights, it is the next generation providing the impetus for justice on the issue. One could ask, I suppose, why adults are so much less likely to correct injustices and must wait on the youth of another generation to bring the justice? Perhaps as adults we spend a lifetime formulating faith based notions about this or that and to suddenly reverse course on one issue brings an unsettling insecurity about the validity of our other faith based issues. If some adults don't think it through that way, religious leaders do. Once something declared sinful is changed to not sinful, or vice-versa, it brings into question the validity of all faith based dogma. Let's be honest---organized religions feel under heavy assault by rapidly changing ethical values. Something wrong is now suddenly right? Or something right is now suddenly wrong? For most faith based religious organizations the 'all or none law' becomes the operative mentality of the faithful---a sort of 'over my dead body', 'circle the wagons' state of mind. If one believes God declared something wrong or right, it is logically incomprehensible that He was mistaken. Of course, by definition God is always right, so that leaves the human religious authors of the dogma as humanly fallible. And if they are wrong on one issue, how many other issues might they be wrong about? The consequence of all this is that more and more people start, on their own, accepting some beliefs and rejecting others. Churches then begin to split into 'liberal' and 'conservative'factions. This divisiveness leads more and more people to feel on the fence about a lot of key issues and church attendance then suffers. The purists take on hard edges, become angrier and angrier, more combative, and their demeanor, whatever else it may project, comes across as more and more 'un Christ' like in tone and actions. At this point empathy (among the purists) toward others takes a huge beating.

One of the most sensitive, kindest gals in my building sent a mass email as follows:

This is why we love Texas
*****************************

T. B. Bechtel,a part-time City Councilman from Midland, TX,
was asked on a local live radio talk show,
just what he thought of the allegations of torture of the
Iraqi prisoners.

His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to
thunderous applause from the audience.

'If hooking up an Iraqi prisoner's balls to a car's
battery cables will save one Texas GI's life, then I have just
three things to say:

'Red is positive,
Black is negative,
Make sure his balls are wet.'"

Clearly this portrays total lack of empathy for others of a different ilk. The answer to this sort of hatred is simple. If Texans don't want to be killed by Iraqis then perhaps they might refuse to support or be a part of invading that country. This little rage against others, as these kind of rages always do, manages to convert the victims into oppressors. The slaves were not the victims, they were the demons. The Vietnamese were not the victims they were the demons. Gays are not the victims, they are the sinful demons, and so it goes. The Golden Rule is merely ignored as some sort of purely etherial utopian decorative cover to hide the blemishes of intolerance to others of a different ilk.

Harsh as my comments might be, the solution for lack of empathy is still elusive. Some people, given real exposure to those groups existing under the injustices, will become empathetic to their plight. Others, given the same exposure, will not. I wonder what percentages of those who attend 'sensitivity' sessions at work really develop empathy? I guess the question is whether you can really teach empathy? Empathy is more an emotion than an intellectual exercise. You sometimes feel empathy as a consequence of exposure, in person, to the injustices. As long as the kind lady who sent that email does not know personally any of the tortured prisoners, she can have no empathy with them. If she did know them, knowing her sensitive nature, she would be hysterical at their torture. "Stop it" she would scream before passing out.

Judgment on ethical matters and the issues of empathy is sometimes beyond human reach. It is like going into a rage because your son or daughter loves the village's least understood creep. People love who they love. Is this a sin or a prosecutable offense? I guess not either. Is it a mistake? Might be. Of course in this wayward son or daughter example there is no victim. In the torture cases, or groups dealt an injustice, there are victims. Empathy is not required on any universal basis for justice to happen. Minorities can be protected by judicial decrees and justice can even be voted in with the help of those who let objectivity overrule their own feelings. It is possible not to like or understand this or that group and still shrug and say, "Well, if they don't bother me, let them live as they want and get equal privileges under the law."

Little amazes me so much as to observe individuals who show so much empathy with their own family members, their own neighbors, their own religious believers, etc. and have an opposite excessive little empathy with others of diverse backgrounds. It is almost like the more loyal they are to their own kind, the more hostile they are to others of any different kind. God help any of these others if such self centered individuals serve on their jury trial, or are their teacher, or an arresting policeman, etc. If a teacher has no empathy with a particular group, for whatever reason, it is nigh impossible for such teachers to hide their lack of empathy. He/she can say all the politically correct things, but the targeted students know. They always know. All of us can figure out rather quickly which individuals in any group setting have disdain for us. It is often what they don't say or don't do which tips us off. Most people figure out pretty quickly when they have to watch their back from someone. Once the trust is gone, conflict and confrontation are not far behind. And trust, once betrayed, is not easy to restore.

Empathy is a concept which intrigues me. It is, after all, this lack of empathy which makes the world a dangerous place to live. If everyone had empathy with others of a different ilk, then all we would have to address are the common criminals---the thieves, rapists, killers, etc. That is manageable if there can be empathy on all the other issues which cause turmoil. What is empathy in practice other than the ability to see things through the eyes of others, to understand why they feel the way they do, and to then seek commonality of goals so conflict can be avoided and justice done to all the parties concerned?

Without empathy the evolutionary process---at the human level---would be unmercifully cruel. Survival of the fittest may well be some sort of obligatory process for evolutionary progress. There is no doubt, from the broadest viewpoint, that evolutionary progress has always been upward into more complex and advanced species. The human species exists because of this God created evolutionary process. Much like medicines come with unwanted side effects, evolution comes with unwanted side effects, side effects which can be painful and even fatal to specific individuals. We are not all created equal, and but for empathy, the less competitive (the unfortunate) in life would receive no mercy, no fairness, little support. In this respect empathy is the cornerstone of human ethics. We all know it is good to be kind, and some individual acts of kindness, covered by the media, receive almost universal applause---feel good stories. The purpose and goal of empathy is to make the evolutionary process less painful for the least amongst us. It is far beyond my ability to decipher the consequences of unethical behavior, but it just seems logical that judgment will be based on this concept of empathy. To horde wealth, power, or even good health is not exactly an act of empathy with the less fortunate. Certain humans may thrive because of genetic advantages in a given environment, but there is no basis for any "well, I earned this advantage". Genetics, environment and luck are the operative forces determining the fate of all members of all species. And in the end, all members of all species are dead. Or are they? The basis of life is not individual organisms but DNA molecules and these continue on forever. The evolutionary process dictates that life is a continuum, and despite the ignorance of the creationists who view God in a different light, apart from the evolutionary process---- and view God as some sort of meddling interventionist on behalf of his chosen 'people', obsessed with punishment, in need of constant praise and prayers in order to do the right thing for the right people at the right time. I certainly cannot prove otherwise, but the logic of it all fails me.

Partly because of age, partly because of my personality, partly because of my good luck in earlier years, I no longer feel any need for expensive hobbies, world travel, titles, power, control over others, or any of the influences which interfere with empathy for others. If ever 'live and let live' drives my life, now it is at its apex. I try to live simply, and whatever modest accumulation of wealth I have is, or will be, returned back into the society from whence it came. Empathy dictates that it go directly to causes or people with needs, and in the process make a better life for those less fortunate. This simplicity of living, and the empathy created with my intentions, brings contentment. Others, at a different age, with differing personalities, and with more or less luck in life, will view this empathy thing through different lenses. The road to contentment may well be different for different folks. The role of ethics is there, but not for me to judge.

Since justice starts with empathy for others, let empathy be the basis of our ethics and let empathy be used to take off the rough edges from God's created evolutionary process. Empathy is good for our mental health and indeed, our popularity amongst others. It is hard to dislike a person who likes all kinds of people. It is hard to dislike a teacher who likes all kinds of students. When I observe people, and I do that a lot in many different settings, it is clear the happiest are those who appreciate diversity. Not just tolerate it grudgingly, but find diversity the spice of life. Empathy carries it's own reward via contentment. I look back on the many meetings in which the fate of some 'nothingburger' was held in the hands of a committee vote.The purists, the rule enforcers, the 'rule is a rule is a rule' gang, the stern enforcers of discipline members, always held rules sacrosanct even when the reason for the rule hardly applied in a particular case for justice to be done. It was never a person to be evaluated, but a rule to be enforced. If justice was done and the rule exempted or twisted to achieve justice, the anger of those with little empathy extended not just to the person being judged but to those who made the justice happen. Those who brought about the justice felt good, proud of themselves and happy for the defendant. Know the makeup of a jury and the outcome will be predictable. I used to ask those who so desperately sought punishment "Why are you so angry? There is nothing evil in giving people a chance who can be shown to deserve a chance." It was never to any avail. Their reply was always along the lines, " Why even make rules if they are not going to be enforced? Let's just let everyone do as they please around here". I've had my share of breaks and second chances and it just seems fair for others, least blessed with the best genes and/or the best environment to get a few breaks too. There is nothing wrong with giving the least amongst us breaks PROVIDING the breaks are based on need, not family connections, ethnicity, looks, etc. Reasonable affirmative actions based on need and circumstances are not unfair, they are only unfair when based on something other than need. The vast majority of affirmative actions in our modern age have gone to those in designated groups with no need to be given any breaks. This is outrageous and leaves behind even further those with real needs.

In the broadest sense, when Rev. Wright screamed "God damn America" he was no more irrational than those who scream "God Bless America". God created an evolutionary process. The laws which govern that process are not driven by any demands by us or anyone else. You can tell God to bless or you can tell God to damn, but the process proceeds irrespective of this nonsense and the laws of evolution don't know America from Africa. I really would like to be more important than I am, but with time I mellow and understand more, and see more clearly the role individuals play in the evolutionary process. As Lincoln said, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." That, to me, is about the sum of life for each of us, and to whatever extent there is more to it, the future only knows.

EQUALITY (ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS JUSTICE)

Equality (Ethnic and Religious Justice )

"All men are created equal", or so it goes. Of course this is absurd anymore than all dogs or any other animals are all equal to each other. God's evolutionary process is based on inequality in order to selectively ensure progress in the process. It is better to say that all men are entitled to equal justice, or Terrell's "fair is fair" mantra. Given the current status (development) of humans in the evolutionary process, justice happens sparingly. We have the intellectual capacity and innate moral sense to know that justice should prevail, but selfish desires often rule the moment. Take Native Americans---out of two continents this ethnic group ended up with not a single sovereign nation, small or large, on either of the two continents. Clearly that is not justice. Susceptibility to strange diseases and lack of firepower eliminated them rather handily. When Israel was created by carving out a Jewish state in the middle of a Muslim World the Arab Palestinians were forced onto some of the most barren land in the area. This was their fate. It never did make an awful lot of sense to me that a particular religious group is entitled to their own land of some historical sentiment. I am not sure where the Baptists originated but maybe they have a right to own the land of their origination. If this were so important, why did Jews scatter across the world? At the time the State of Israel was created it was not illegal for them to live in what is now the State of Israel. Of course the whole thing was a belated attempt to relieve the guilt of the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened in Germany so logic would seem a piece of Germany would have been carved out for them. But it was decided by the time honored 'not in our back yard'. So it ended up in someone else's backyard.

Over 50 years later this creating a nation on other's people's land is still a hot potato. The answer, in my mind, lies in economics. If you are going to force an ethnic group to live elsewhere you better make sure the area is capable of prosperity. People who have nothing, also have nothing left to lose. Death, in the absence of viable living, is not feared like those of us more affluent fear it. If Israel and the United States had spent one tenth of the money spent on military hardware for the State of Israel---and had spent this money to invest in economic prosperity in the Palestinian lands, the violence of today over there would not exist. As I write this Israel has already destroyed the few structures of any value in the Palestinian Lands. The only thing left is to go in a murder X number of residents, currently known as terrorists. They are mostly all terrorists over there on all sides. Forget democracy and communism, and socialism and monarchy, etc. it is terrorism which has been the common political state in the mideast for centuries. If anyone needs proof of what violence achieves in the face of conflict, the Middle East is the perfect example. This is George Bush's "Dead or alive" and "you can run but you can't hide' mentality taken to cultural perfection. Our buying into this mentality has been a disaster. We used to be a Good Neighbor, now we are this massive military monster, the World's Cop, and the Economic Czar---some sort of Global Plantation Owner depending on slave labor for our own affluent living, an affluence which is rapidly becoming very very lopsided even in our own country. Every civilized country, right now, is being pulled down to third world status, some countries faster than others. It is a roller coaster ride with fewer and fewer upswings and protracted downswings. Everyone, hold on to your hats, this could be a wild ride.

This entitlement to equal justice and fair play is really the basis for cultural excellence. To the extent any culture deviates from this excellence the culture is proportionately deficient and doomed to failure. When this country was founded we didn't have cultural excellence. We had noble ideals and a desire to be noble with words like freedom and justice as a guide. It wasn't just the Indians left out of our original game plan but also the Catholics, women, children, blacks, the mentally ill, slaves, religious minorities, the handicapped, the elderly, and the gays were all left outside looking in.

Justice is always myopic. We see it best as it relates to our own selves and our own circumstances. But myopic justice, the kind fostered by the current 'family values' mantra, is not the kind of justice that innate human ethics demands. If we did not have an innate understanding of universal justice we would not be forever making excuses for why justice is only for some. The pattern is always the same----slavery was not an injustice because of blah, blah, blah; women didn't deserve the right to vote because of blah, blah, blah; Catholics, Indians, and other groups in different regions of the country were second class citizens because of blah, blah, blah; children could be exploited because of blah,blah, blah; equal but separate schools could be justified because of blah, blah, blah. Discrimination against the elderly, the handicapped, the mentally ill and gays was justified because of blah, blah, blah. When all else fails injustice toward others relies on religious faith based interpretation of dogma written centuries ago. Religion is always the most potent force to protect injustices. After all, if God wants things a certain way, what more is there to discuss? And who better to know how God wants things to be than those with the appropriate religious titles?

It is easy enough to believe in justice and fairness as a function of custom. Look, if these 'people' don't like things the way they are they can leave. There is something very agitating about any notion of expanding justice, perhaps because I think we all tend to view much of our life in terms of how big a piece of the pie we are getting. Expanding justice seems to imply, ever so subtlety, that we personally are going to lose something, that our piece of the pie is going to be smaller or more difficult to obtain. Organized religion tends to view expanded justice in the same way---a loss of influence, power, and control over the culture in which they exist.

Because of these fears Churches, and all of us, tend to circle the wagons, organize politically, and try, in the case of democracy, to force religious beliefs and customs to become the law of the land. Ah ha---questions will be finally settled. This is just an illusion. Always has been. We will make the use of alcohol illegal and the practice will be ended. Sure. We will make the use of marijuana illegal and the practice will be ended. Sure. We will have the Supreme Court make slaves declared property and the issue will be ended. Sure. We will have the Supreme Court or state laws make homosexual unions illegal and the issue will be ended. Sure. In the long run, justice and fairness tend to prevail. But in the process there are millions of victims. That, in itself, doesn't seem fair. God's evolutionary process is full of individual tragedies. It really is. The price for progress is steep, and by the evolutionary laws of chance, any of us could be a victim. I hate that aspect of evolution. I guess this makes ethics simply a responsibility to alleviate the lives of the less fortunate. Maybe someone can't be the brightest or most successful person in the world but that doesn't mean we let them starve to death. Of course we do, unless maybe they by chance they lie starving on our own house doorstep. We do make exceptions but try to keep the unfortunate out of sight and out of mind.

Correcting injustices is so hard for us who are fortunate because we live lives which, for the most part, are sheltered from the realities of the injustices. I like to say people build people, much like clergy like to say the fortunate should help the unfortunate, but like the clergy, this is mostly effortless babble on my part. I think people become sensitized to justice for all and fairness to all when someone in their lives makes them confront reality in a broader context than their own small environment. It may be a series of people, but often it is just one or two. At an earlier age I was involved with such a person and my sensitivities to justice for all have never been the same since. If this person had told me one more time "Don't be that way" I would have killed them. Until you end up constantly around someone who isn't "that way", the message rarely sinks in. This person brought me into contact with good people with heavy crosses to bear, crosses put there by a society which simply distanced themselves from such injustices. Once exposed to these people you lose the hardened edges of your ethics while your sense of justice and fairness expands, sometimes exponentially. But it comes with a cost---the still sad voices of humanity will be permanently embedded in your psyche. With the increased sensitivity often comes varying degrees of hostility to your efforts to defend them or help them. Depending on your profession you can't win too many popularity contests defending the targets of injustices. To the extent you are in a position to correct some of the injustices you become swamped by victims, ever more sympathetic to them, and feel the need to 'retire' from it all.

None of us can change human nature or evolutionary laws. So why bother to be ethical at all? Why even be concerned with justice for others? One trait of humans is an inherent sense of right and wrong. I am not aware of any culture which does not have this innate sense of right and wrong. It is always a question of doing right vs wrong. If there really is a right vs wrong then, in my mind, this means there must be consequences for doing right vs doing wrong. Otherwise right and wrong have no meaning. What the consequences are seems beyond human grasp. Of course you can have a faith based belief of what the consequences are, but I personally find that a waste of time. Inherited religious beliefs don't really carry that much weight with me. Guilt by birth is not something I attribute to God. Thus, in my mind, we mostly know right from wrong, but do not know the consequences of doing right vs wrong. Since there does not seem to be any clear pattern of consequences in this life, maybe there is an afterlife. Even religious Christians pretty much ignore scripture that is contrary to their own life styles. When much younger I stared at the verse "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven". What is rich? I guess anyone with more money than I. I think most Americans like myself must be in the top 5% globally. As I say, the problem is always to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing, but too often we yield to our own feelings and do as we want to do, say some Hail Mary's of some sort, pray for God to do the good work for us, build elaborate temples to keep God happy and some participate regularly in religious rituals. It's all kind of humorous from a distance, but in one fashion or another, we are all clowns participating in some sort of self-serving charade---and damn the consequences.

In my own case, in my formative years I was too dumb, in my productive years I was too busy, and now in my terminational years I am too old to be on the front line of anything. If there are consequences I wonder where the cut-off line is? Maybe there is not any cut-off line and maybe none of us, as individuals, are significant at all in this evolutionary process. We have to exist for the process to continue, but we only exist for an brief miniscule period of time. I really want to feel important, but it is difficult. I suppose with death that really might be it.

Any kind of thoughtful observation of life and our earth brings a realization that misery outweighs happiness on the reality scale. And, for anyone with any developed empathy outside their own family and circle of friends, happiness is always tempered by so many living lives of quiet desperation. How does one deal with this realization? I guess one does what he/she can. I think empathy carries with it a certain amount of contentment. Empathy with those most in need, or most oppressed, does not bring any material reward, no titles, no power, no anything but a sense of duty done. I think the most meaningful empathy---that of empathy for others different from ourselves---is the hardest to come by. As so often, judgment of others here is difficult. Empathy is in large part learned, not something inherent or self taught. Exposure to certain people and certain environments develops empathy. Others not exposed to these certain people or certain environments are not likely to develop empathy with diverse groups of people. Those most sheltered in life, least traveled, and most fearful by nature are not likely to have empathy with diverse groups. Instead they fear diversity. With ample exceptions, religious people often have the least empathy with others. It shouldn't be that way---but it is---which is one reason I shun organized religion. I never feel more like a religious charlatan than when sitting through an organized religious service. Over time I just sensed this is not where ethical reality is really at. Pretense is sham.

I view justice as a moral obligation, not a realistic endpoint. In every battle for justice in which I have ever been involved, justice done is peace of mind achieved. A lot of ethical judgment is not judging actions, but understanding the whys of the actions. Killing is wrong, for example, but there are exceptions. In the business of life there are many actions evidently wrong by the letter of the 'law' but not wrong under the circumstances. When a rule or a law does not serve the purpose for which it is intended, then the rule or law loses applicability. It often seems that people with no vices very often have few virtues either. To be around such people is to suffer, to be saddened at man's humanity to man. I just avoid cold, calculating, inflexible, holier than thou people with braces on their brains. Given the choice I prefer the least amongst us, the most in need, those for whom the evolutionary roll of the dice has been less kind. While I am not sure how it relates here, the fanciest of nightclubs filled with society's most elite or prosperous are total bores compared to the boisterous unpretentious milieu found in the local pub for the ragamuffins in life. At this stage in life I can be found in neither, another nook in life not really compatible with the terminational stage of life.

Justice for all applied applied with empathy is the noblest aspect of life, the nearest thing to religious or ethical purity, and in it's absence there can be no real peace of mind, no settled conscience, no feeling of genuine worth. I don't think it wrong to amass material comforts in life up to a point-----providing in the end, along the way and at the end, the wealth so accumulated gets put back into the society from whence it came. Passing wealth on to genetic linkages or friends is to amass wealth unearned at the expense of making such wealth available for others to earn it, or for those with the greatest need to survive. To whom much is given, much is expected. From whence will help for the least amongst us come? From those of us to whom God's evolutionary laws have been the most kind. That then, becomes the final Amen to life.