• Psychology of Life,  World Affairs

    How do we start thinking in a way that prizes human life above all else?

    February 25, 2019


    Photo by Shahzayb Qureshi on Unsplash

    It seems that all over the world there is a problem with this thinking.  First, we indulge ourselves in judgments.  Judgments are useful for making oneself feel better than, but they are not useful for valuing the sanctity of human lives. Judging others fools us into thinking that that there is a “better” and a “worse” human. For those in America (and perhaps in other places) this becomes a valuation.

    How do we bring recognition to how the world thinks about human life? How do we get world leaders to recognize that war that kills human life is a crime? How do we change this thinking so that all peoples, particularly those in power, understand the sanctity of human life? Human life must be held over all other values, whether it be gold or the valuation of the stock market. Nothing on this Earth equates to the value of the human life.

    “In religion and ethics, the inviolability or sanctity of life is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life that are said to be holy, sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated.  Wikipedia”

    Someone told me once that “Ethics is not the powerful committee, if you want corporate power, get on the process committee.”

    There it is again, ethics, not so popular and not so powerful in today’s world.  If we look at religion, we really lose authority, because of the state of religion today.  The Catholic church must review the thousands of claims of sexual abuse and must admit to the thousands of children born from these crimes. So, it is for good reason that the Catholic church has lost moral authority in the world.

    We live in a world where millions are thought to be “underclasses”.  In America, we must fight and fight hard for the rights of women and people of color.  (Not to mention the hundreds of others who are not quite upper class.)


    Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

    How do we help humans to prize human life above all else?  How do we get from where we are to that place where each and all human life is sacred?

    1. Get all known leaders to buy into a framework of prioritizing human life as first above everything.
    2. Make war an impossible path for any nation to take.
    3. Prioritize the punishment of those who commit war crimes.
    4. Create a national conversation around the sanctity of human life.
    5. Acknowledge our human tendency to judge, but don’t allow judgment to be used to harm others.

    We cannot continue the world ways as they are now.  We cannot continue to judge each other as “less-than” or “more-than”.  We make these judgments only as a means of increasing our own egos.  It then leads to a whole host of crimes perpetrated against the “less-thans”.

    How can we stop using our judgments about others as justification for bad treatment of those others?  How do we convince people to leave judgments out of decisions about humans?

    Let’s take our judgments out of the way of our feelings for others.  Let’s not take our judgments seriously as a means of evaluating the value of humans.  Judgments serve no purpose other than to our own minds.

    How do we move forward with an undeniable respect for the sanctity of human life? We all, each and every one of us, must take a stand. We must stand for human life, our own, others and every one on this Earth.

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  • Economic Equality (A Goal),  Womens Issues,  World Affairs

    American Wealth Dedicated to War

    February 18, 2019

    So much of what our country does has a focus on war.  War is a way of thinking, being, believing and speaking.  Generals have unthinkable power and control over the resources of our nation.  We don’t talk about it, our national conversation never addresses the largest of elephants-in-the room and that is the war machine that lives in the world’s wealthiest nation, America.

    It is the easiest trap to fall into and that is: groupthink.  To be part of the group, you must think the same and agree with the same beliefs.  For the war machine those beliefs include a “never enough” strategy.  A willingness to commit deep crimes to convince America that there is this need for evermore money to commit to the deep hole that is the war machine.

    There is no threat to the United States that could not be eradicated by the United States, in less than two minutes.  And yet, we continue to send good men and women to their deaths in all corners of the world.  Make no mistake about it, war is profitable, and nothing stops change faster than the mighty dollar in the U.S.

    We have enough nuclear weapons to annihilate the possibility of living on planet earth.  No country comes even, a little bit close, to our power in weaponry and killing machines.

    We don’t need to continue to live the dream of World War II.  We don’t need human beings to be cannon fodder anymore.  We are smarter and we are stronger than that.

    The problem is, the Pentagon.  The powerful will not relinquish an inch of power.  Neither will the wealthy war contractors, those who manufacture tanks and rifles and rations, they will not give up the gravy train. Without the sale of war as a good cause to the American people, war would not be possible.  Currently we idolize warriors and this is a very good thing.  We are taking care of soldiers who have been damaged by the war machine.  It would be more than painful to tell these brave humans that the sacrifice was to profit rather than to country.  That doesn’t mean that we should continue to validate a need for war.  We do not need a war, we do not have a need for our sons and daughters to die.

    Truly, can anyone name a reason why we have soldiers in the middle east?  Are we saving American lives?  Are we saving any lives?  The product of war is death, there is no way around that fact.  There is nothing that changes or rearranges that fact.  War equates to death of the warriors and the innocent alike.

    Think of those that manage the huge war machine in the U.S.  It is the job of these to find threats to the United States.  It is the job to construct an argument that justifies the expense of dollars and lives.  It is the job of these to keep this war machine rolling forward and to keep increasing the expense, both in dollars and in lives.

    What if we said no?  No more war?  What if the American people said, we do not want to continue our nation in this manner.  What if we said not more war machine?  We would require a scientific, meaning, a data- driven formulation of meaningful information.  We would allow American mothers to have a vote, we would allow those who pay the price of war, not those who gain from war… to decide when and how to engage.  We could engage without risk to humans and engage without risk to civilians.

    What if we took the possibility of profit out of war?  What if contractors had to complete the complex accounting that Medicaid contractors must complete?  With the idea that auditors could come at any time and disallow expenses and therefor reduce the price of the product?  What if you went to jail for profiting from war?  What if you went to jail for being a war monger?

    Let’s not associate war with the warrior.  Let’s get out of group think and address war for what it really is: a living breathing threat to humanity and perverted profiteering for the few.

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  • Womens Issues,  World Affairs

    Who are these People?

    February 9, 2019


    Photo by Trym Nilsen on Unsplash

    Who are These People? And What are they Thinking?

    They take advantage of anyone and everyone to serve their own needs.  They do damage to people in order to be sexually satisfied.  In their own minds they are doing something that is quite right.  How?  How do they justify raping people, taking advantage of vulnerabilities in others, in order to have their own pleasure?  What do these people say to themselves?

    Do these people say to themselves “I am better than her, I have so much more money and she is just a peasant, why shouldn’t I take her body for myself?” or “I am better than him, he is a busboy, I am a wealthy actor, why shouldn’t I satisfy my own needs with his body?”

    And for the rapists who buy children, what do they say to themselves?  “I have bought and paid for this body, it is only an object for my pleasure.” Or, “I had sex when I was ten years old, there is no reason why I can’t have sex with this ten year old girl.”

    Or perhaps there is no awareness, nor conversation, maybe it is just animalistic instinct with no intellect to intervene.  Do people turn off their consciousness in order to perform these heinous acts on others?

    Each of the accused profess innocence loudly and voraciously.  The victim can have a video recording of the rape and still the perpetrator claims innocence.  How is this the norm for humans?  Depraved sexuality without consequence?

    Why aren’t good people more capable of stopping these activities?  Recent investigation into the Catholic church revealed staggering numbers of priests who have been accused by the faithful.  How, why and who?

    Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.

    • On average, there are 321,500 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States.1
    • Ages 12-34 are the highest risk years for rape and sexual assault.3

    Studies by David Finkelhor, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that:

    • 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
    1. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2012-2016 (2017).
    2. i. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997); ii. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crimes Against the Elderly, 2003-2013 (2014).
    3. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997).

    Who is perpetrating these crimes?  How do they believe that it is okay to sexually assault others?  Do I know any of these perpetrators?  Do they work at the 7-11, or perhaps at the dry-cleaners?  Was my doctor a rapist?  Have I met these perpetrators?  The chances are that yes, I have met many of these perpetrators.  Most certainly, I have met the victims…

    Who are these people?  Who are the people who believe that it is ok to have sex with an unwilling participant, or worse yet, someone incapable of giving consent?  Who do you have to be, to purchase child pornography?   Who do you have to be, to have sex with a woman who is unconscious?  Who do you have to be, to take advantage of a drunk bus boy?

    What will it take to stop these criminals from acting?   As a society, what do we need to do to stop sexual assaults from occurring every 98 seconds?

    We must keep talking about sexual assault, when someone reports, listen and believe.  Support assault survivors with kindness and appropriate resources.  When survivors must testify, make it safe for the survivor.

    We must punish sexual assaulters to the fullest extent of the law.

    What we must do, if we really want to address this issue is to work hard for economic equality.  People who can afford attorneys, people who can afford life, are less likely to suffer abuse, because no one will abuse someone who can strike back.  No one will abuse someone equal to them.  Currently, those who are abused are the vulnerable and the weak.  Those who cannot strike back, those who cannot speak for themselves, they are the sexually abused.

    It is because of this, that we must make victims equal in power to their perpetrators.  We must give victims, equal say and the power to fight back.

    We must also take away raw authority.  There is no reason to teach children that they must obey authority.  By teaching children in this way, we open them to the worst of vulnerabilities and that is to teach them to agree with any who may have authority.  We don’t want a society based on these concepts.  We want a society where reasoned discussion can take place and children are taught to think for themselves.  We don’t want our children following the instructions of the Catholic priest, the teacher, the police man, unless those instructions make sense.  We must ensure that our children respect their own bodies and respect their own thinking.

    And what about the adult vulnerable, those who have less strength, or less money and power?  How do we rid ourselves of those who would assault them?  How do we get men to stop drugging and raping women?  What are these men saying to themselves?  “She deserves this, for not talking to me.”  What are these men saying to each other after they have assaulted a woman?  “Way to go, I can rape girls too.”

    I am encouraged that brave people are finally talking about the assaults and taking perpetrators to court for their actions.  I am encouraged that we are finally talking about sexual assault in the open.  I am relieved that we have such a powerful tool as DNA to stop attackers from repeating rapes over and over again.  DNA gives us the power to stop the serial rapist from being successful.

    Lastly and finally, we must change the conversation.  Whatever it is that the rapist or the pedophile is telling him or herself has to be changed.  We must have a human conversation that says it is never okay to sexually assault another human being.  And for those that are incapable of joining the conversation, those who cannot intellectually reason, we must enforce the means necessary to protect the innocent from them.  We must ensure that people are not damaged by the deranged or mentally ill. 

    Our human conversation must be clear and must be universal and it must state unequivocally that all humans have the right to protect their own body.  This right is unquestionable, whether a person has the strength, the power or the money, does not matter, each person has the right to their own body and the safety of same.

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