Praying for Peace

After praying about the hostility in our country regarding the presidential election I went to sleep. Then I woke up during the night with these words in my mind:

“I am only one,
But I am one.
I can not do everything
But I can do something.
What I can do, I ought to do
And what I ought to do,
I shall do.”

(This morning I googled them and found out they’re a paraphrase of words by Edward Everett Hale.)

Okay, that was clearly an answer to my prayer, so I went back to sleep.

When it was nearly time to get up I awoke again and wondered, “What is the something I can do?” Then I went back to sleep again.

When the alarm rang and I got up I realized what I can, and ought to do, is write things that will help bring us together again, so I’m trying to do that here and now.

We can disagree without anger and hatred. Each side believes the other is morally wrong, but  being wrong is not the same as being evil.

I’ve mentioned before the definition of love I learned in a college class:” when the happiness and well-being of another is essential to one’s own happiness and well-being a state of love exists.”

Whatever the outcome of political decisions to come, some people will not be happy with them, but we can still want what is best for each other. And even if we don’t all love one another, we can find ways to live together peacefully.

Please, please, please let’s try to do that.

A Rantasy

Once Upon a Time, not far away there was a land governed by a bunch of spoiled brats. They constantly quarrelled and refused to cooperate. All of them insisted that things be done their way or not at all, so the country had great problems.

The people voted them out of office and elected - another bunch of spoiled brats who were just as quarrelsome and uncooperative as the first bunch.

Finally the citizens got a brilliant idea and at the next election they chose a preschool teachers to run the country.

The preschool teachers knew all about things like cooperating, listening, and taking turns. They even got everyone in the country to share and share alike so the problems were solved and they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

Politics! (A Rant)

Are you tired of political advertising? With a little more than two weeks to go before the election in the United States it will probably only get worse. If all the money spent on campaign advertising were to be donated to the government instead, our country would be in much better financial shape.

Maybe I'm hallucinating, but I seem to remember that a few decades ago candidates mostly talked about what they, themselves, had to offer rather bad-mouthing their opponents.

Here's a crazy idea: what if when the next election comes along we all start in mid-summer keeping count of how many commercials, mailings, phone calls, etc. we get for each cause and candidate and vote for the ones with the lowest numbers?

Okay, I'm just kidding. Obviously that wouldn't be sensible.

But nobody in any government office is likely to vote for anything that offends those who finance their campaigns, so our country is actually being run by the rich. Isn't that what a lot of our ancestors came to America to avoid? Whatever happened to "government of the people, by the people, and for the people?"

I wish it would become illegal for anyone to make campaign donations and the government itself provided equal amounts to all candidates, no matter what parties they belonged to. Come to think of it, there's nothing in the Constitution about political parties so maybe they should be eliminated altogether and each candidate and issue evaluated on its own merits.

Of course that will never happen because the people who have authority because of the way things are want to keep it that way, and they're the only ones who could make the changes.

But at least we can vote and I hope everyone reading this will do that, even if it must be for the lesser of the evils. It's better to make a tiny difference than no difference at all. But please let's all actually read everything in the voter's guides and not make decisions based on the ads.

Politics

Here in the USA as the Presidential Election approaches the news is full of politics.

I wish I had a bumper sticker that said "If you don't vote, don't gripe" because lots of people who complain all the time don't bother to vote.

Does voting by ordinary citizens really make a difference? Well, maybe only a very small one, but it's certainly more likely to influence how things are done than not voting.

Unfortunately almost nobody in a high political office is likely to vote for anything that offends the people who finance their campaigns. It would be nice if campaign donations were illegal and the government provided equal amounts for all candidates to notify the public of their qualifications and stands on political issues. But since the people who could make that happen benefit from the way things are now, that probably won't change.

I understand in Canada they have three major political parties instead of two so if there's a split the third party always breaks the tie.  Maybe someday in the US a third party will become equal to the two major ones, but that's not likely to happen in the near future.

Since there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution maybe it should be illegal for Congress to differentiate between them but, again, the people who have the authority to let that happen would be opposed to it so it won't be allowed.

Yes, our system is flawed in many ways, but ordinary citizens do have a voice and can make a difference in the world if we let our opinions be heard, and voting is one way we can do that.

Prejudice and Bigotry

Prejudice is the assumption that all members of a group are the same.

In primitive times it was wise for humans to assume that all wolves, bears, and panthers were dangerous. If someone got sick or died after eating a certain plant it was sensible of everyone else to believe all plants like that were poisonous. Even if the assumptions weren’t completely accurate, they helped people survive.

Bigotry is a negative assumption about a group of humans.

In past centuries most people never traveled more than 20 miles from their homes and it was normal for them to be uncomfortable around others who looked and sounded different from those in their own communities. Often they only encountered different people in times of war. It was understandable that they became bigoted.

In the 1960s and 70s we worked hard to eliminate prejudice against people based on their race, religion, sex, or national origin and the Americans with Disabilities act made prejudice against others with special needs less likely as we became more familiar with those people. While the problem hasn’t disappeared completely, bigotry is a lot less common now - except for one kind.

Political party bigotry has become rampant, and the people with the most power in our country are working to encourage it.

Thousands, if not millions, of Americans now believe all Democrats want to undermine the basic moral values of our culture. Probably about the same number think all Republicans are either ignorant rednecks or selfish rich people.

In the English language we use the word, “wrong” to mean both inaccurate and immoral. Because someone’s beliefs are innacurate doesn’t necessarily mean they are immoral, although they might be.

In my humble opinion it is both inaccurate and immoral to encourage bigotry against people because of their political beliefs, and completely immoral for politicians, journalists, and others to encourage political bigotry.

Right and Wrong

The other day I was giving someone a ride and needed directions.

"Do I turn left here?" I asked.

"Right," my passenger replied. "I mean left. That's right, you should turn left."

English is an amazing language. Because we've 'borrowed' words from so many other languages ours is rich in synonyms, but sometimes it can still be confusing. The word, 'right' has two meanings that have nothing to do with each other and I won't even get into the political meaning.

Another word with two unrelated meanings is "wrong." That word can mean either inaccurate or immoral and confusing the two sometimes causes worse problems than turning right instead of left.

If I didn't believe my beliefs were right (ie. correct) I wouldn't believe them, so obviously I consider beliefs that differ from my own to be wrong. But I mean 'wrong' in the sense of inaccurate rather than immoral. Unfortunately many people consider those whose beliefs are different from their own to be wrong in both senses, and that has caused a lot of hostility.

Of course some beliefs actually are immoral. For instance I would consider a religion that encouraged human sacrifice or a government that encouraged slavery to be morally wrong. However many of our religious and political differences are a matter of disagreeing about accuracy, not morality, and we could prevent a lot of hostility if we distinguished between the two meanings of that word more carefully.

Nursery Rhymes and Politics

     "Duh" may sound like contemporary slang, but variations of the word have been around for centuries. In England during the 1500s it was pronounced "Daw" and meant a foolish or stupid person. You may remember a certain woman named Marjorie who was called a daw in a nursery rhyme.

     In America, where we're guaranteed freedom of speech, it's hard for us to imagine what life was like back when people were imprisoned or killed for expressing political or religious beliefs that disagreed with the people in power. Many nursery rhymes were actually ways of expressing those things without getting caught. For instance, I remember reading years ago that Rock-a-Bye Baby was really about overthrowing the king and his infant son.

     Whenever more than two people are together there will always be politics. It can be frustrating to hear about government and church politics but things could be a lot worse. Duh!