Thursday, October 10, 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013
Christians join theists and atheists in regard for the gift of life
The mutual impetus to change human conduct that threatens life on the planet concerns us all, no exceptions.
Samuel Scheffler, philosopher of New York University, published recently in the New York Times an article (see endnote) on the human condition, or situation. His viewpoint is premised not on the uncertainty principle, but rather on the certainty principle of human mortality. The viewpoint is not tucked into an atheist or theist stance which I as a believer in God feels uncomfortable in endorsing.
I ask of my fellow believers in not only God, but the God of justice, mercy, and compassion, to give his disposition the merit it deserves. Ethical conduct by the individual and by society remains our subject however. Scheffler is a proponent of mindfulness about the legacy we can and should leave to our successors on the planet Earth.
This can be viewed as a superior disposition to an old world notion which was concerned with ancestor worship, and tradition for tradition’s sake. Shame about one’s conduct often is framed in terms of having failed the expectations of our ancestors that placed their hope in our success in perpetuating and extending civilization.
In my life time, I can not forget the shame of America in suing for peace in the 1970s and abandoning its toe hold support of post-colonial powers and its control and influence on mainland Asia (outside of South Korea and Taiwan). It was indeed to have a reflexive assertion of power and influence in two wars in the new century’s first decade at the same time to assert the role of the American Empire in Asia: Afghanistan (from 2002 and by 2013 winding down) and Iraq ( from 2003 and by 2009-2010 winding down).
What is a little more difficult to assert is that society either has the will and the leadership or it does not to affect desirable conducts. Scheffler posits an idealist principle that intelligent acceptance of the realities of the human race has impetus for change. For example, current certainty about human causation of global warming is termed in a percentage (95% of concerned scientific appraisal).
As to what can or should be done to curtail the negative effects of global warming, politicians remain more beholden to trade and industry and current profit margins for capitalism and continued exploitation of the world’s resources to perpetuate wealth predicated on world markets and consumerism.
What issue I take is not with Scheffler’s humanism or his rationalism for indeed we currently resident on Earth do succeed or fail premised on the future hold of the human race on this planet, its habitability, and its fostering of life.
My issue would be with persons, Christians or not, who conclude that the tomorrow for the planet can be divorced from one’s view of the afterlife. The concern of Jesus was for the entirety of society and Christianity per se has as its concern all persons without exception as subject to redemption and salvation. He did not exclude generations yet unborn.
If one posits “end times,” then one lives with greater urgency the day God gives us to live. That urgency of which Scheffler speaks (regard for posterity) is just as valid with a personal afterlife as a guarantee of God’s provision for his children. Christians just can not, must not, separate themselves from theists and atheists whose common humanity is ever more apparent in the custodial role of the human race in its care of the planet that fosters life.
If faith is valid for the individual and the individual community (and I believe that it is), that faith can not abandon the perpetuation of life and the health of this planet as its concern. The common enemy is the devil in the details, the crass indifference to the planet's health and the human community's failure to safeguard life and its perpetuation by what means we have to do so.
Rick Hilber, Monday, September 30, 2013
End Note. See Star Tribune, Sunday, September 29, 2013, at OP4 for “What to do today if tomorrow never comes?” by Samuel Scheffler as reprinted from the New York Times prior publication of the article.
Samuel Scheffler, philosopher of New York University, published recently in the New York Times an article (see endnote) on the human condition, or situation. His viewpoint is premised not on the uncertainty principle, but rather on the certainty principle of human mortality. The viewpoint is not tucked into an atheist or theist stance which I as a believer in God feels uncomfortable in endorsing.
I ask of my fellow believers in not only God, but the God of justice, mercy, and compassion, to give his disposition the merit it deserves. Ethical conduct by the individual and by society remains our subject however. Scheffler is a proponent of mindfulness about the legacy we can and should leave to our successors on the planet Earth.
This can be viewed as a superior disposition to an old world notion which was concerned with ancestor worship, and tradition for tradition’s sake. Shame about one’s conduct often is framed in terms of having failed the expectations of our ancestors that placed their hope in our success in perpetuating and extending civilization.
In my life time, I can not forget the shame of America in suing for peace in the 1970s and abandoning its toe hold support of post-colonial powers and its control and influence on mainland Asia (outside of South Korea and Taiwan). It was indeed to have a reflexive assertion of power and influence in two wars in the new century’s first decade at the same time to assert the role of the American Empire in Asia: Afghanistan (from 2002 and by 2013 winding down) and Iraq ( from 2003 and by 2009-2010 winding down).
What is a little more difficult to assert is that society either has the will and the leadership or it does not to affect desirable conducts. Scheffler posits an idealist principle that intelligent acceptance of the realities of the human race has impetus for change. For example, current certainty about human causation of global warming is termed in a percentage (95% of concerned scientific appraisal).
As to what can or should be done to curtail the negative effects of global warming, politicians remain more beholden to trade and industry and current profit margins for capitalism and continued exploitation of the world’s resources to perpetuate wealth predicated on world markets and consumerism.
What issue I take is not with Scheffler’s humanism or his rationalism for indeed we currently resident on Earth do succeed or fail premised on the future hold of the human race on this planet, its habitability, and its fostering of life.
My issue would be with persons, Christians or not, who conclude that the tomorrow for the planet can be divorced from one’s view of the afterlife. The concern of Jesus was for the entirety of society and Christianity per se has as its concern all persons without exception as subject to redemption and salvation. He did not exclude generations yet unborn.
If one posits “end times,” then one lives with greater urgency the day God gives us to live. That urgency of which Scheffler speaks (regard for posterity) is just as valid with a personal afterlife as a guarantee of God’s provision for his children. Christians just can not, must not, separate themselves from theists and atheists whose common humanity is ever more apparent in the custodial role of the human race in its care of the planet that fosters life.
If faith is valid for the individual and the individual community (and I believe that it is), that faith can not abandon the perpetuation of life and the health of this planet as its concern. The common enemy is the devil in the details, the crass indifference to the planet's health and the human community's failure to safeguard life and its perpetuation by what means we have to do so.
Rick Hilber, Monday, September 30, 2013
End Note. See Star Tribune, Sunday, September 29, 2013, at OP4 for “What to do today if tomorrow never comes?” by Samuel Scheffler as reprinted from the New York Times prior publication of the article.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Obama and the Punitive Use of Fire Power as the Means to an End
Today, Congress at the behest of the President, is deliberating the use of American fire power (as opposed to invasion or start of war consent). Approval of use of American firepower to punish the Assad Regime in Syria for its use of chemical weapons on its own people is a curious use of Congress. Why is that?
Our representatives can look at the intelligence or not, but if they look they can not disclose either the content or the good faith of the dossier on Assad's conduct of suppression of the uprising in Syria. So we are left the public speeches of Congress which are scrubbed and sanitized and which leave us the American people in the dark.
It happened with the George W. Bush Administration's jingoism and lead up to the Iraq War premised on weapons of mass destruction that in fact the Hussein Regime of Iraq did not have (in so far as production of such weapons in the lead up to the start of war and the search for weapons that followed could or would ever establish). So, asking the American people to authorize a punitive action on the Assad Regime is wrongheaded.
The correct forum for every police action in world affairs is the flawed by design provisions of international law, specifically the United Nations. Disclosures in that forum by the United States can help establish that the removal of Assad from power is for the greater good of the people of Syria itself. Even then, the mayhem that results in the takedown of the regime will result in untold consequence for the people of Syria. The President wants to commit to a punitive action, one that must not have as its goal the removal of the regime from power. Why? Because the power vacuum that will result will be filled by jihadist and extremist elements who will exploit the opportunity to further not the cause of Syria and its people but their own insane delusions of power and right.
But then why ask the question of the American people? One is reminded that the government secrets are supposedly secret because of actual national security concerns for our undercover agents and those they come to exploit for America's cause. The President is on the hotseat by his own "good offices." Which leaves us where? The real ethical dilemma is Russia's and Turkey's dilemma. Each country has a sad history of pogroms and genocide to account for not just in days of the Russian and Ottoman Empires, but in the modern era of Republics. They are the power brokers who need the status quo in Syria for their own internal and national security interests.
So the real question is where does American power and influence stop, or should it stop? If this is about preservation of Israel, then take out the enemies of Israel. If this is about the Christian or non-Alewite Muslim populations of Lebanon and Syria, they will be decimated by America's firepower (much as the Christians of Iraq have suffered so adversely from America's invasion of Iraq). We know the chemical weapons and control centers will be housed in churches, schools, and mosques. How good are we with pin point use of fire power? Ask the 100,000 plus dead civilians of Iraq (but do not ask the survivors of these 100,000). My President seems bound and determined to excuse the death of innocents as the essential product of taking action, what is called euphemistically, not terrorism per se, but "collateral damage." No President wants to signal that the American Empire has its limits.
Time, Mr. President, to call you on this one and your true motivation for using American fire power for purposes of "credential" enhancement of American power in the Mid-East. I voted for you twice, but I'm still very much the critic of the power brokers of Washington, D.C., of which you by definition have become.
Our representatives can look at the intelligence or not, but if they look they can not disclose either the content or the good faith of the dossier on Assad's conduct of suppression of the uprising in Syria. So we are left the public speeches of Congress which are scrubbed and sanitized and which leave us the American people in the dark.
It happened with the George W. Bush Administration's jingoism and lead up to the Iraq War premised on weapons of mass destruction that in fact the Hussein Regime of Iraq did not have (in so far as production of such weapons in the lead up to the start of war and the search for weapons that followed could or would ever establish). So, asking the American people to authorize a punitive action on the Assad Regime is wrongheaded.
The correct forum for every police action in world affairs is the flawed by design provisions of international law, specifically the United Nations. Disclosures in that forum by the United States can help establish that the removal of Assad from power is for the greater good of the people of Syria itself. Even then, the mayhem that results in the takedown of the regime will result in untold consequence for the people of Syria. The President wants to commit to a punitive action, one that must not have as its goal the removal of the regime from power. Why? Because the power vacuum that will result will be filled by jihadist and extremist elements who will exploit the opportunity to further not the cause of Syria and its people but their own insane delusions of power and right.
But then why ask the question of the American people? One is reminded that the government secrets are supposedly secret because of actual national security concerns for our undercover agents and those they come to exploit for America's cause. The President is on the hotseat by his own "good offices." Which leaves us where? The real ethical dilemma is Russia's and Turkey's dilemma. Each country has a sad history of pogroms and genocide to account for not just in days of the Russian and Ottoman Empires, but in the modern era of Republics. They are the power brokers who need the status quo in Syria for their own internal and national security interests.
So the real question is where does American power and influence stop, or should it stop? If this is about preservation of Israel, then take out the enemies of Israel. If this is about the Christian or non-Alewite Muslim populations of Lebanon and Syria, they will be decimated by America's firepower (much as the Christians of Iraq have suffered so adversely from America's invasion of Iraq). We know the chemical weapons and control centers will be housed in churches, schools, and mosques. How good are we with pin point use of fire power? Ask the 100,000 plus dead civilians of Iraq (but do not ask the survivors of these 100,000). My President seems bound and determined to excuse the death of innocents as the essential product of taking action, what is called euphemistically, not terrorism per se, but "collateral damage." No President wants to signal that the American Empire has its limits.
Time, Mr. President, to call you on this one and your true motivation for using American fire power for purposes of "credential" enhancement of American power in the Mid-East. I voted for you twice, but I'm still very much the critic of the power brokers of Washington, D.C., of which you by definition have become.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Adult modernity leads away from where we are going!
I am reminded of a person who once was so far into being righteous that he touched upon the face of God and God held his hand and called him: "Child."
The next day, when the rich and powerful heard this person proclaiming love of neighbor (including one's enemies), they felt threatened and undermined. The worldly wise saw no choice; they had the person put to death. Now, there's a story.
True ...religion was born that day in a land long ago and far away. Some who heard him that day started to say he had risen from the dead. Many would turn away having much to lose, while others with nothing to lose believed and lived henceforth with hope that in the end good triumphs over evil. It's a primitive belief though.
We moderns do not need it, do we? We have such very well formed consciences, we do not need this guy mucking up our capacity for self justification.
The next day, when the rich and powerful heard this person proclaiming love of neighbor (including one's enemies), they felt threatened and undermined. The worldly wise saw no choice; they had the person put to death. Now, there's a story.
True ...religion was born that day in a land long ago and far away. Some who heard him that day started to say he had risen from the dead. Many would turn away having much to lose, while others with nothing to lose believed and lived henceforth with hope that in the end good triumphs over evil. It's a primitive belief though.
We moderns do not need it, do we? We have such very well formed consciences, we do not need this guy mucking up our capacity for self justification.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Why the Sole Proprietor is Favored in the Law, and then Disfavored in Favor of Limited Liability Business Entities
Are you among those who think a progressive Republican or liberal Democrat is out to get the sole proprietor?
Tell me you know that the business expense deduction properly and legally claimed is the means to an end to further small businesses which are unlikely to be hobby ventures. Americans who favor the graduated income tax know that at the point a small business pays a salary to its employees, the business in effect has no income which is subject to the graduated income tax. That protection in the law is not going anywhere when you consider the realities of new growth enterprises.
When a sole proprietor, a limited liability company, a corporation, an international corporation, began to hide profits in off shore accounts and other maneuvers, they remove the wealth from the economy which is the Economy of these the United States of America. The money supply shrinks, jobs are siphoned off to other economies where labor is slave labor poor and without any of the protections of the law we afford for one another in this our commonwealth.
Yes, it's true that no President fearful of re-election is going to print money at a rate that causes inflation of the currency (which he will do to some extent to counter the siphoning off of the wealth of our country into international capitalism). Why is that? Because persons on fixed incomes whose income is for the most part consumed by necessities are first to suffer the impact of inflation.
On the other hand, those with the means of enhanced income typically benefit from the economic maneuver of investment sectors such as home mortgage sector which just increases the interest rate on loans. This triggers a spiralling and out of control economy as the rich make war on the rest of us who depend not on investment income but on the fruit of our actual daily labor. The only way out is to tax the rich and increase the income tax on unearned income (as in sale of stocks, receipt of payment of dividends, and exercised stock options). The push back is for the rich to say to the law makers if you do not allow us protected unearned income (essential interest and dividend income), well we are just going to take our money and invest it where you can not tax it.
Geez! Don't you love asking simple questions and getting complexity thrown right back at ya? Be that as it may, are you absolutely wrong in defaming "progressives" or "democrats."
The class war has been for some time now been on the little people who depend more on the sweat of their brows then on their leveraged investments which profit the rich at a very little risk (given limited liability law for investor protection and a lower tax rate for investment income).
Trickle down economics is an obscenity foisted on us by economic conservatives with no regard for the rest of us in society and for whom we represent only opportunity and exploitation. A progressive wants government to be responsible for its effective expenditure of public funds (which includes foregone revenue from effectively taxing the wealth of the economy that has been squirrelled away by the rich people and even richer corporations)..
If I find an economic conservative who is a progressive typically, I find a hypocrite whose pockets are lined by corporate America and special interests. If I find a true progressive, I typically see a public servant who regards ordinary wage earners as the lowest common denominator and as one who asks at every turn: "How will this change in the law affect the little guy and gal who have to buy milk and rush their baby to the emergency room and go to food shelf and stand in line for a job and be badmouthed by the folks who have it made?"
Tell me you know that the business expense deduction properly and legally claimed is the means to an end to further small businesses which are unlikely to be hobby ventures. Americans who favor the graduated income tax know that at the point a small business pays a salary to its employees, the business in effect has no income which is subject to the graduated income tax. That protection in the law is not going anywhere when you consider the realities of new growth enterprises.
When a sole proprietor, a limited liability company, a corporation, an international corporation, began to hide profits in off shore accounts and other maneuvers, they remove the wealth from the economy which is the Economy of these the United States of America. The money supply shrinks, jobs are siphoned off to other economies where labor is slave labor poor and without any of the protections of the law we afford for one another in this our commonwealth.
Yes, it's true that no President fearful of re-election is going to print money at a rate that causes inflation of the currency (which he will do to some extent to counter the siphoning off of the wealth of our country into international capitalism). Why is that? Because persons on fixed incomes whose income is for the most part consumed by necessities are first to suffer the impact of inflation.
On the other hand, those with the means of enhanced income typically benefit from the economic maneuver of investment sectors such as home mortgage sector which just increases the interest rate on loans. This triggers a spiralling and out of control economy as the rich make war on the rest of us who depend not on investment income but on the fruit of our actual daily labor. The only way out is to tax the rich and increase the income tax on unearned income (as in sale of stocks, receipt of payment of dividends, and exercised stock options). The push back is for the rich to say to the law makers if you do not allow us protected unearned income (essential interest and dividend income), well we are just going to take our money and invest it where you can not tax it.
Geez! Don't you love asking simple questions and getting complexity thrown right back at ya? Be that as it may, are you absolutely wrong in defaming "progressives" or "democrats."
The class war has been for some time now been on the little people who depend more on the sweat of their brows then on their leveraged investments which profit the rich at a very little risk (given limited liability law for investor protection and a lower tax rate for investment income).
Trickle down economics is an obscenity foisted on us by economic conservatives with no regard for the rest of us in society and for whom we represent only opportunity and exploitation. A progressive wants government to be responsible for its effective expenditure of public funds (which includes foregone revenue from effectively taxing the wealth of the economy that has been squirrelled away by the rich people and even richer corporations)..
If I find an economic conservative who is a progressive typically, I find a hypocrite whose pockets are lined by corporate America and special interests. If I find a true progressive, I typically see a public servant who regards ordinary wage earners as the lowest common denominator and as one who asks at every turn: "How will this change in the law affect the little guy and gal who have to buy milk and rush their baby to the emergency room and go to food shelf and stand in line for a job and be badmouthed by the folks who have it made?"
Friday, April 19, 2013
Preface to November 13, 2012, "The Beloved of the Earth."
Preface to Beloved of the Earth.
The gun lobby would perhaps ban my poem "Beloved of the Earth" from the internet, but I hope my fellow Americans who cherish most sacredly the Second Amendment will take a moment to understand the consequence of my poem "The Beloved of the Earth." Why would I say such a seemingly self-serving thing? I will tell you why.
Each time you take a life (animal or human) that you at least get it that killing is a desecration which only the animal or human family can condone, maybe even honor, if you the killer understand what we and you lose with the taking of a life. Killing is of consequence to all of us, the human community, we stewards of this our home, the planet Earth.
There is no impermeable barrier, as each of us very well should know, between the right to bear arms and the taking of life by the use of firearms, and the consequences of which I speak. We are too enamored of saying only criminals misuse firearms. The reality is that humans are killers.
Killing is gratuitous, or it is not. A lawman one moment who cherishes the rule of law becomes an enraged killer the next. The person who has killed, the next moment will sometimes, too often, turn the gun on himself. Time must have a stop. And one wanting an exit, turns the firearm on himself.
So the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is not termed with exceptions and allowances, and wisely so. Even the soldier who follows orders has to deal with the personal consequence of the taking of the life of another. His or her humanity is at a risk when following orders. Indeed, every commander understands at his or her own peril that what he asks of his platoon is lawful, or it is not. There will be other occasions of a My Lai Massacre, but my generation has had its moment of horror, of an American leader debased by his act of terrorism and one who about finished the role of America as the noble interloper in Southeast Asia. What would a noble commander have said to his troopers that the cause be advanced? I think I know. Why? Because it is etched onto our hearts every Memorial Day service in remembrance of our honored dead:
"Be fully armed and dangerous, be wary, for much depends on you not firing your weapon. Much also depends on you discharging your weapon to spare the life of your comrade. I too would be a defender such as I would have you to be. Very little depends on you firing to save your own life. Why? Because more than life itself, you treasure honor and the privilege to be of service to your country and not to dishonor it with deeds of infamy. This day if it be your last, die knowing you have the gratitude of your commander and of your country. It is a noble thing, sweet and honorable, to give one's life for one's country!"
Does our language even have a word for the gratuitous killing at My Lai in 1968. Yes, "atrocity." Were most of the deaths perpertrated that day at My Lai acts of terrorism? Yes, they were. Remember though that not all who were at My Lai participated in the unlawful killings of the unarmed, infants, children, women, and elders. The true heroes saw the murder of innocents and they paid the price to bring to light the atrocity which has among others such as the Moro Crater Village Massacre in the Phillipines become the shameful history of this country which we must share and own as surely as the heroics of Valley Forge and Gettysburg.
One of the effects of immorality is the mindless repetition of behaviors of our leaders who take us as a nation down the wrong path. The path to the right leads to villainy in furtherance of a just cause. Even more of consequence, the path to the left leads to furtherance of an unjust cause by perpetration of unjust means to affect that unjust cause. There lies the very meaning of the word "horror" as in the phrase: "the horrors of war." If there be amplified shame in defeat, the shame will not be a consequence of nobility in war, rather utter ignobility in immoral acts to advance an immoral cause.
A nation deserves its defeat that can not serve the greater good for itself and its neighbors and fellow residents of the planet Earth. Yes, the person of conscience with a will must seek to end a war the victor. If you need an example, study history. If wars must be fought though, I for one emphasize that the true crisis of war is the crisis of nobility in executing the war. Yes, I am mindful that foremost in mind is the shrill dictum of militarists and patriots that a war to be fought must be a war to be won." I want to add to the dictum these words: "or one should not have resorted to war in the first place."
What do we make of a high purpose? We do the age old rendition of turning the high purpose into gratuitous killing. We end up saying falsely and ruefully that "Might makes right." Even victors lose all sheen of glory for a battle won by acts of treachery and betrayal of their nobility. For the victor, the perpetration of a criminal and immoral deed, especially one seemingly required of one to prevail, is undone by the truth. No poet can make patriotic such ignoble deeds of a victor. No, the true poet will find another theme: the tragedy of an aspirant of nobility who falls far short of deeds of valor which may have redeemed his ignoble purpose.
In this day and age, the acts of radicalized persons programmed to commit mayhem and homicidal suicide leaves us as a civilized people ready to shorten our personal liberty, our privacy, and our rights. Americans consider the exceptionalism of the insanity of such "heroics" by homicidal suicides. Indeed, suicides so deluded that they would serve a cause they deem noble by committing an atrocity. "What deeply damaged human is this killer who wants to take innocent persons into his enlarged and profaned act of suicide?"
Just wanting a larger stage on which to protest the inequities and injustices which beset an individual does not make one a terrorist. However, by conspiring to take the life of another, leaders of a noble cause debase the cause itself as noble and are traitors to its goals. Terrorist as a word fails of its meaning and usefulness as a label. I would to reserve the label "terrorist" for the evil plotter who turns another human into a programmed killer on a mission. Such a person deserves such a label (being the creator of a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of violence).
Each time you take a life (animal or human) that you at least get it that killing is a desecration which only the animal or human family can condone, maybe even honor, if you the killer understand what we and you lose with the taking of a life. Killing is of consequence to all of us, the human community, we stewards of this our home, the planet Earth.
There is no impermeable barrier, as each of us very well should know, between the right to bear arms and the taking of life by the use of firearms, and the consequences of which I speak. We are too enamored of saying only criminals misuse firearms. The reality is that humans are killers.
Killing is gratuitous, or it is not. A lawman one moment who cherishes the rule of law becomes an enraged killer the next. The person who has killed, the next moment will sometimes, too often, turn the gun on himself. Time must have a stop. And one wanting an exit, turns the firearm on himself.
So the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is not termed with exceptions and allowances, and wisely so. Even the soldier who follows orders has to deal with the personal consequence of the taking of the life of another. His or her humanity is at a risk when following orders. Indeed, every commander understands at his or her own peril that what he asks of his platoon is lawful, or it is not. There will be other occasions of a My Lai Massacre, but my generation has had its moment of horror, of an American leader debased by his act of terrorism and one who about finished the role of America as the noble interloper in Southeast Asia. What would a noble commander have said to his troopers that the cause be advanced? I think I know. Why? Because it is etched onto our hearts every Memorial Day service in remembrance of our honored dead:
"Be fully armed and dangerous, be wary, for much depends on you not firing your weapon. Much also depends on you discharging your weapon to spare the life of your comrade. I too would be a defender such as I would have you to be. Very little depends on you firing to save your own life. Why? Because more than life itself, you treasure honor and the privilege to be of service to your country and not to dishonor it with deeds of infamy. This day if it be your last, die knowing you have the gratitude of your commander and of your country. It is a noble thing, sweet and honorable, to give one's life for one's country!"
Does our language even have a word for the gratuitous killing at My Lai in 1968. Yes, "atrocity." Were most of the deaths perpertrated that day at My Lai acts of terrorism? Yes, they were. Remember though that not all who were at My Lai participated in the unlawful killings of the unarmed, infants, children, women, and elders. The true heroes saw the murder of innocents and they paid the price to bring to light the atrocity which has among others such as the Moro Crater Village Massacre in the Phillipines become the shameful history of this country which we must share and own as surely as the heroics of Valley Forge and Gettysburg.
One of the effects of immorality is the mindless repetition of behaviors of our leaders who take us as a nation down the wrong path. The path to the right leads to villainy in furtherance of a just cause. Even more of consequence, the path to the left leads to furtherance of an unjust cause by perpetration of unjust means to affect that unjust cause. There lies the very meaning of the word "horror" as in the phrase: "the horrors of war." If there be amplified shame in defeat, the shame will not be a consequence of nobility in war, rather utter ignobility in immoral acts to advance an immoral cause.
A nation deserves its defeat that can not serve the greater good for itself and its neighbors and fellow residents of the planet Earth. Yes, the person of conscience with a will must seek to end a war the victor. If you need an example, study history. If wars must be fought though, I for one emphasize that the true crisis of war is the crisis of nobility in executing the war. Yes, I am mindful that foremost in mind is the shrill dictum of militarists and patriots that a war to be fought must be a war to be won." I want to add to the dictum these words: "or one should not have resorted to war in the first place."
What do we make of a high purpose? We do the age old rendition of turning the high purpose into gratuitous killing. We end up saying falsely and ruefully that "Might makes right." Even victors lose all sheen of glory for a battle won by acts of treachery and betrayal of their nobility. For the victor, the perpetration of a criminal and immoral deed, especially one seemingly required of one to prevail, is undone by the truth. No poet can make patriotic such ignoble deeds of a victor. No, the true poet will find another theme: the tragedy of an aspirant of nobility who falls far short of deeds of valor which may have redeemed his ignoble purpose.
In this day and age, the acts of radicalized persons programmed to commit mayhem and homicidal suicide leaves us as a civilized people ready to shorten our personal liberty, our privacy, and our rights. Americans consider the exceptionalism of the insanity of such "heroics" by homicidal suicides. Indeed, suicides so deluded that they would serve a cause they deem noble by committing an atrocity. "What deeply damaged human is this killer who wants to take innocent persons into his enlarged and profaned act of suicide?"
Just wanting a larger stage on which to protest the inequities and injustices which beset an individual does not make one a terrorist. However, by conspiring to take the life of another, leaders of a noble cause debase the cause itself as noble and are traitors to its goals. Terrorist as a word fails of its meaning and usefulness as a label. I would to reserve the label "terrorist" for the evil plotter who turns another human into a programmed killer on a mission. Such a person deserves such a label (being the creator of a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of violence).
The law obviously does not deter sociopaths and psychopaths, and so the law must be for the rest of us to uphold and to cherish.
When a shepherd hunts down a predator of his sheep, he is not into gratuitous killing. He might like our ancestors ask Brother Wolf to forgive him his defense of his livelihood, his sheepfold.
Killing a wolf for your "credentials" as a hunter is actually without nobility (perhaps you have a bounty in mind for Brother Wolf's life). The wolf in its natural state is noble, while you my dear friend, degrade the meaning of the word "hunter" if not the word "human."
You are merely a killer and apparently without remorse.
May God forgive you in your plea for mercy at the hands of the killer who stalks you to the grave, yourself!
I understand that suicide is the outcome esteemed more than hunting itself by gun owners (given statistcs on suicide by gun and the percentage of gun owners who maintain a firearm or an arsenal for purposes other than hunting legally).
What's that about? Some would say "mercy," but I sense that "cowardice" is the fatal flaw for many who take the nearest exit! Our national trauma of gun enhanced violence continues and we dwell too much on death. Sadly, some who suicide, want the evil of gratuitous taking of life to mean some greater evil abides which justifies the taking of the lives of others. Hence, the commandment: thou shalt not kill. Let vengeance be God's.
The Newtown
Endnote by the author: Elsewhere then this posting, I make clear my regard for the piece supplied our American perspective by libertarians (who briefly stand for minimal government and maximization of individual liberty). My emphasis here and elsewhere is on the values clarification with which the egotism of individual liberty by definition fails of any social purpose, a regard for the community. For example, if you condone abortion as a right, very much the same right to kill enshrined in the Second Amendment, this poem "Beloved of the Earth," I optimistically believe, might start you on a journey of gratitude and dismay. The Giver of life is honored and cherished by all who speak of our Mother the Earth. The shadow on us all is the act without mercy or regard for the gift of life.
Originally published to Facebook, January 19, 2013.
Revised Friday, April 19-21, 2013. RJH.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
We tax wealth, even the wealth of persons of modest means, but why?
This is a two part article on patriotism and wealth. The article is inspired by the events of the last ten years in which our Congress did not raise taxes to pay for two foreign wars. During that period, it also extended the tax cuts obtained early in the G.W. Bush Administration which were made possible as a result of the balanced budgets of the Clinton Years in the White House. The tax cuts of course should have renewed the economic good times of the 1990s age of the new technology companies and mildly increase revenue of taxation. Instead, the inequities in the tax code went unreformed and Wall Street took ordinary Americans to the cleaners. Even worse the bankers and lenders leveraged their risks into oblivion to take profits by sale of securities which may as well have been shredded when the housing market collapsed. All of this irresponsible behavior was to really bad effect as President Bush was left scrambling in 2008 at the end of his term to save the world economy with bailouts of banks and Wall Street investors (which to be fair included the investments of ordinary Americans whose portfolios for retirement took it in the shorts and just maybe should be spared a total emptying out of their pockets). Enjoy.
Part I. Why I love the rich.
Part I. Why I love the rich.
Do
you know why you love the rich? I know why I love the rich. They pay the
graduated income tax in support of capitalism that permitted them to be takers
of the wealth of others, the laborers, the decedents (inheritance), and the
means of wealth afforded by public spending on roads, airports, and the
infrastructure of the country, including the internet, not to mention the
security afforded by military preparedness and national defense.
I dearly love a certain nephew who confuses liberals with
communists and socialists and at times spews forth that liberals are fascists
or nazi. He debases language and misconstrues the nature of those of us who
support a system of laws and self-government that procures prosperity for
ourselves and our posterity.
The wealthy, left indulging in a myopic avarice and fear, at
their worst and ultimately against their own self interest, would attack and
degrade the purity of the graduated income tax which permits not only the
system of laws to prevail, but also refloats the economy so that it can grow
again and provide pathways for all participants regardless of social economic
class.
The very best capitalists support the graduated income tax and gladly fund government because it is the true expense of procuring and maintaining wealth (i.e. property rights and intellectual property rights being the procurement by order in society without which chaos and debasement ensues).
Our most generous and truly disinterested capitalists even safeguard their children from the evil effects of unearned wealth by posting their wealth to charitable endowments that further the public good while focusing on the empowerment of their children to have goals and interests, their own pursuits. That would explain the exorbitant tuition the wealthy afford for the better if not the best schools from pre-school to grad school. Not containing the tuition rates perhaps due to their extreme of wealth, they then at some point fail to object to our current system of encumbering our college students with burdensome student loans to afford post-secondary education and even more burdensome grad school debt. At no junction is the class system so apparent and so damning as two students with the exact same results as undergrad but burdened so unevenly with debt. The impoverished graduated heads into the job market extremely hungry to say the least, and at just about every turn, has to broker a future for oneself and likely broken in addition spiritually as one sells his soul to have his success. As an aside, it suggests that ethical and spiritual endowments are life saving expenditures for our young which at some point will surely factor large in a child or a youth or a student making it through the worm hole that is economic independence with a conscience, a regard for society, the family, children the vulnerable, the elders, and the finer things of life such as art, music, preservation and restoration of nature and wildlife.
Our most generous and truly disinterested capitalists even safeguard their children from the evil effects of unearned wealth by posting their wealth to charitable endowments that further the public good while focusing on the empowerment of their children to have goals and interests, their own pursuits. That would explain the exorbitant tuition the wealthy afford for the better if not the best schools from pre-school to grad school. Not containing the tuition rates perhaps due to their extreme of wealth, they then at some point fail to object to our current system of encumbering our college students with burdensome student loans to afford post-secondary education and even more burdensome grad school debt. At no junction is the class system so apparent and so damning as two students with the exact same results as undergrad but burdened so unevenly with debt. The impoverished graduated heads into the job market extremely hungry to say the least, and at just about every turn, has to broker a future for oneself and likely broken in addition spiritually as one sells his soul to have his success. As an aside, it suggests that ethical and spiritual endowments are life saving expenditures for our young which at some point will surely factor large in a child or a youth or a student making it through the worm hole that is economic independence with a conscience, a regard for society, the family, children the vulnerable, the elders, and the finer things of life such as art, music, preservation and restoration of nature and wildlife.
Even Dale Carnegie who extracted the very life blood of
immigrant labor to the point of slavery knew that he could not cross the bloody
ground upon which his wealth crested without practicing disinterested public
endowment and largesse for the good of society.
God bless you if you have a good income or God bless you if you
pay as you go, but pay your church tithe and your income tax with a grateful
heart.
What is true?
When you begin to realize that the words conservative and
liberal coalesce if the public interest is held high.
We tax ourselves because we trust in our selves to not be
isolated and ensconced in our walled and armed compounds with the starving at
our gate awaiting alms.
We fully fund public education for all and esteem the teacher
who provides learning and discipline as a way forward (whether the child is of
the entitlement of wealth or of welfare) (notice that the word "entitlement" while dishonored by crass materialists actually is a regard for the livelihood of persons whose wealth is not yet procurable, or likely procurable, or past being procurable by engaging in the fray that is the competitive market place of society, business, and industry).
When you say "God bless America" if you're a liberal
like me, you really mean that you do bless those who cherish its system of laws
and its self-government, its fairness, its equity, and its prosperity. These together as integral of one another are together your
highest concern. You could actually say of me that I am bent on the conservation of values and livelihoods for all in so far as that can be obtained on this earth and by our society bent on progress and the dignity of human life. I would see to it that government is to be the servant of we the people, and not of the privileged few whose greed (and its excuse for the perpetuation of private gain) endangers the economic well being of the rest of society. In my book the community and its prosperity procures for all the very best products of both capitalism (private ownership) and socialism (public ownership), but that is a topic for another day as the balance of public and private ownership requires patient fine tuning and conscientious experiment. Not governing ourselves wisely is to buy trouble and so liberals and conservatives stay engaged and as true patriots get the job done!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)