The World According to a Tergiversating Philosophicojuristic Seclusionist:
My little world has never been very static. Change and curiosity have altered my own perceptions of reality from my teenage years on. Even in the areas of religion and politics nothing was engraved in stone, probably a reflection of little indoctrination from my parents. This freedom to find my own path in life I attribute mostly to my dad. He seldom preached about anything, content to project an image of 'moral aloofness'. He didn't smoke, drink, swear, gamble, cut corners, be secretive about anything, or pull fast ones on anyone. He really annoyed me with all this 'Mr. Goody Two Shoes" stuff. He would wear a suit to a picnic. He couldn't even bother to get even over slights or small injustices. When I did dumb or bad things he expressed disappointment not anger. When my mother would demand he punish or tell me off, he would---in one way or another---say, "He knows right from wrong, he needs to find the strength to not let others lead him in the wrong direction. We didn't teach him to be that way. Now he has to find his own way in life and pay the consequences of any bad decisions." Even his prejudices he pretty much kept to himself, he simply never bad-mouthed anyone or any group. In essence he pretty much left me with a blank slate and a good example of how to live life and treat others.
Somehow I got through adolescence, my productive years, and find the time now in my terminational years to put all the pieces together. At this stage in my life nothing interests me as much as attempting to make sense of this thing called life. There are so many trees that it is almost impossible to see the forest. For someone like myself, a bona-fide social hermit of some sort, the excitement and satisfactions in life come not from others but from within. Others are important to me as some sort of play is interesting to watch. Life around us is really the original big screen TV. Clearly there is more sadness than joy in the lives of most on our globe. I have always really hated that reality---so many people living lives of quiet desperation, hardly knowing which end is up, which way to turn, and precious little support base from which to get any help. It is the trees getting in the way of the forest.
I never doubted the existence of God. At first it was just blind faith in my inherited religious dogmas. With time I felt increasingly uncomfortable with blind faith. Aside from basic moral concepts---concepts universally accepted as moral---the particulars of varied religions seemed invented, always based on someone's recollection of a prophet, and years after the prophet's death. I never doubted the wisdom or moral goodness of these prophets, but emissaries from God was another matter. It seems since the appearance of man on this planet, man always invented God---in one form or another. And God was always humanesque in every conception. To deny the existence of God would be akin to denying the existence of someone who gives you an anonymous gift.
The God created gift of life is found in the evolutionary process. Nothing man made ever remotely compares to the complexities and wonders of nature. I never feel more religious or more in contact with this created evolutionary process than when in nature as a solitary admirer. It is there in nature I know my dad was right. I, like others, know right from wrong. To what extent I ever have the strength to do right rather than wrong is always the question. It is the same question others, in one form or another, must address. We all know the golden rule. It is a global inconvenient truth---a truth which we often work around when it clashes with our own interests, desires, needs.
I listen to Presidential debates and am impressed with their vast knowledge of the trees. Yet when all has been said (but often never done), it is the forest which needs be seen in order to bring any real lasting changes. I doubt ever in the history of man on the earth have so many ominous forces of nature been closing in on the welfare of human life upon this earth. We can stall---we can tinker---we can protect a few at the expense of the many---we can keep our heads in the sand----we can and are doing all of this, but Nature always bats last. Always.
I see 5 global forces of nature closing in on humanity which are not addressed in Presidential debates. Maybe they understand these forces and simply reflect the global attitude of denial.
More likely, the nature of the evolutionary process is such that no species has yet to escape the laws of nature. The notion that God often, if ever, interferes with the laws of nature to personally guide any of us through any land mines of misfortune, is simply not supported by history. These laws of nature apply to all----the good and the bad. We can pray all we want for God to intercede here and there, for this or that situation, but clearly Nature rolls on. Whether we like it or not, we are not, individually or collectively, any kind of end point for justice or happy endings. We're all dead in the long run, at least regarding any earthly life. Any life after death is beyond human comprehension. The justice and brilliance of this created system is that the evolutionary process has always proceeded upwards and onwards to new levels of life.
At any rate, there appear to be at least 5 major forces to be contended with for improving the welfare of human existence. I will address each force separately and just add each force to this musing as I write it up. For now I will only list the first force.
1. Reproductive Responsibility
There are far too many people on this earth for our natural resources to be protected or provide a quality life for all inhabitants on the earth. Every aspect of our environment is now being assaulted past the point of any replenishment or protection. The atmosphere, the land, the sea, other species, minerals and vegetation are all under massive assault by human densities. Politicians can babble all they want about how the good life is going to be spread to all. With the global population as is, this is literally an absurd declaration. The United States alone consumes something like 25 or 35 percent of the energy consumption of the whole world. Anyone who thinks there are enough natural resources to spread this 'good life' to all across the globe, or even to all in our own country, is simply being silly. The choice is clear: impose reproductive responsibility on all populations across the globe or assign increasingly vast numbers of human beings to lives of hopeless cruel desperation. The right of anyone to reproduce at the rate of rabbits is lost to the right of humanity as a whole to protect the quality of life for those born under responsible reproduction laws. It would seem that raising two kids properly is quite enough of an accomplishment for parenting needs. Anything else is just ignorant, selfish, and cruel. A whole book could be written on this topic, but for the purpose here, not necessary. I think most people understand the dilemma here, but just choose not to seriously think about it: "Oh, things will work out, solutions will be found", etc. Yeah, sure. And I am going to live forever. I mean why not, I have so far. There seem to be all around everywhere more horse's asses than horses.
Every few days I will add to this a new major ominous force affecting human destiny. Perhaps you can guess the other four.
#2.
Violence Begets Violence
For all the good and noble principles contained in the American Constitution and the Christian Bible, American society has always been of a rather violent nature. We never really lost the mentality of the 'Wild West'. It seems much of American History is knee deep in our self proclaimed 'manifest destiny'. And 'manifest destiny' has always been used to take what we want at the moment by force. We may feel the Tibetians or the Jews and other abused groups here and there deserve their own state but the American Indians never ended up with even the smallest state in either North or South America. The institution of slavery was seeped in violence and we were one of the last civilized nations to give it up and only after a bloody Civil War that is hard to match in casualties by anyone else's Civil War. At least no other nation came in and controlled or managed our own Civil War. Nations were a bit more sovereign back then. Today sovereignty is ok unless it conflicts with our 'manifest destiny' of the moment.
I watched a forum recently on television in which the participants talked about ways to reduce the number of high school students shot in Chicago. So far this year 23 students have been shot and killed. A few days ago 23 people were shot in one day. None of the participants in the forum seemed able to see the forest for the sake of the trees. The truth is that Americans have been leading the way in using violence as a means of solving conflict. And we have been doing it at every level, in most every arena. To me it seems that while violence can gravitate both ways, the most pervasive influence comes from the top down. If our leaders use violence to solve conflict then this mentality is adopted by citizens across the board. If people think they can stop the violence in public schools without changing the mentality of our own leadership and policies they are mistaken. What other country has engaged itself in endless military operations across the globe? What other country remotely approaches our own policy of supporting 750 military bases in 130 different countries? How many other countries treat recreational drug abuse as a police matter rather than a medical problem to the extent we do? What other country jails anywhere near the number of its citizens as we do per one hundred thousand population? Why do we spend more money on military matters than all the other countries in the world combined? What other country supplies more weapons to the rest of the world than us? What other country has the production of weapons as their biggest industry? How can any government do all this and then expect their citizens not to use violence themselves to solve disputes? In some respect the gun enthusiasts are right, people kill people, not guns. The Canadians have as many guns loose in their population as ours and kill vastly fewer people than we do.
Violence really does beget violence. The Golden rule should be a lot less inconvenient and a lot more imperative. Tolerance begins at the top. We are so proud, and rightly so, of our own war for independence from colonial rule. How can we then use our vast military might to virtually colonize other countries? There was a time when the statue of Liberty was a beacon to the world for independence and noninterference into the affairs of other nations. There was a time when we would be the last one to enter any war abroad. As one now in his 60's I can remember a youth when no one ever feared being shot at school. It was virtually unheard of. Domestic violence was minimal, drive by shootings didn't exist, the War on Drugs had not yet turned our urban and rural poor areas into barren war zones devoid of stores and people---people not out on their porches and the streets, but hiding behind windows and doors covered by iron bars. To this day the vast majority of American people have never accepted the disgrace of what we did to Vietnam. To have done what we did to the Vietnamese people whose struggle for independence lasted hundred of years ---hundreds of years---first the Chinese, then the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, then finally the United States. What those people went through to win that war is the epic caricature, if there ever was one, of David vs Goliath---with Goliath being in the plural. It would almost make a case for moving the Statue of Liberty over to Hanoi. One can forgive our ignorance at the time, but there can be no forgiveness when we turn around and continually attempt to bomb other countries 'back into the Stone Age'.
How the hell can we expect our own citizens not to use violence on each other, including young teenagers when we have leaders of our own country attacking problems and conflicts with such public preaching as "you can run but you can't hide", "dead or alive" "what ever it takes to win, we will do"? This is not condoning the use of violence by those who set the tone for our own behavior? Then, when those whom we attack respond with "whatever it takes to win, we will do", we call them terrorists. If body counts are used to label who is the biggest terrorist, then we have a commanding lead. But who is winning? Absolutely no one. All societies across the globe, at every level, are losing. We will continue to build bigger, better, and more sophisticated weapons of destruction, whether it be for exterminating people or demolishing buildings----and the growing mobs of ever more desperate people will continue to find simple and effective ways to terrorize our own lives---and like Ho Chi Minh (sp) prophesied: "You will kill ten of us for every one of you we kill, but in the end it is you who will lose". He proved right, we lost and we deserved to lose. None of the reasons for attacking that country proved to have any validity. After hundreds and hundreds of years the Vietnamese finally gained control over their own country. Their War for Independence made our own War for Independence look like a cakewalk.
That forum which debated how to reduce the shootings in our high schools missed the forest for the sake of the trees. There is nothing much one can do about prevention as long as our own country supports violence as the means to solve conflict. Is there anything more absurd than George Bush the Warrior behind a podium telling opposing forces in other countries to stop killing each other and solve their problems peaceably? I don't see much difference between Bush the President and 'Scarface Bubba' the neighborhood gang leader. Both function with the same mentality, the same methods.
The next tidal shock for the American people will be when there is ever a real biological or chemical attack in a major city. All cities now have elaborate plans to deal with such an eventuality. The police, firemen, hospitals, etc all have plans for efficient response. Of course these essential personnel are going to stay on duty and not try to get their own families to safety. Of course. And if Vietnam went communist the whole rest of Asia would fall. Of course. And Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Of course. And the way to win the war on terrorism is to level third world countries back into the Stone Age (they are practically there to start with). Of course. And the way to reduce abuse of recreational drugs is not to treat these problems as medical problems but as criminal actions to be eliminated by the police. Of course. And the band plays on. Can Barack change anything? Time will tell. There really is nothing left but hope, and the supply of that is dwindling at the same exponential rate as our earthly natural resources. We now all get to meet Nero, the famous fiddler----He is us. Zippidy Do Da, Zippy Dey, My, oh my, what a wonderful Day.
