Tag: perspective

We are not all created equal

It is long past the time we need to come to grips with this inaccurate phrase: all are created equal.

One can call it fate, chance, or God but whatever word you use to describe the fact that you were born at such a place and not another, to a woman and not a different woman, at such a time and not 200 or 3000 years ago – we are not created equal.

We have people who get unfair breaks because they trade on their family name. They have no better talent than many others who are involved in the same hobby, vocation, or trade – they however were born to a family that has power behind their name. The child, now an adult has done nothing to bring about their own existence into this world and to whom and when it occurred. They have the unfair edge and advantage over many people far more talented that were not born under the celebrity or power names of our times.

We have people who are born in settings and circumstances that are below poverty that have talent and a heart that can accomplish great things if only they had the edge or advantage of being born in the UK or US instead of New Guinea, Pakistan, Thailand and so on.

Life is not fair. All of us are not created equal.

But wouldn’t it be great if some people of wealth and power had a passion to share their edge and advantage with those who could better those around them and maybe even the world if they had such an opportunity? What if we cared enough to try to spread opportunities for others to shine?

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Wikileaks

November 30th

My mother asked me via email what I thought about the organization and the recent data dump. I was wondering myself because I was a bit unnerved with the Sunday dump where in the past I haven’t been. I think I got it figured out for myself and replied to her – I think that Wikileaks original purpose was to be a whistleblower safe haven and I am all for that. However the action by the organization on Sunday was not whistle blowing but revealing sensitive information for the sake of releasing it and causing embarrassment – most especially for the USA government. I see the potential for a lot of harm and distrust in relationships with other governments and quite possibly undermining very sensitive work that has been accomplished or in the works. They should be held accountable for the disclosure of information just as if they were a captured spy which possessed sensitive/government documents.

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Learning from history is wise

The conversations, debates and stories focusing around terrorism and Muslims usually goes the path about breaking of civil liberties in so called targeting or profiling based on appearance or knowledge of one’s association to Islam. Which is ridiculous as I have posted before and will continue to point out the ignorance to remove or disregard this first obvious level of discernment and decision making. I’ve been meaning to share the following illustration/example and just never got around to it until today…

Many years ago people feared another institution which murdered and brutalized people because of the recipient’s religious beliefs. In a town or village when they saw these people who often dressed different from the town/village citizens. These people also spoke in a different language when discussing their faith and reading their sacred texts. Villagers learned that these people who had travelled to the village/town had one focus – conversion to their faith due to the town’s wickedness for embracing the devil/satan/evil. Citizens also learned over time that these different people usually dressed in black would befriended people in the town to learn more about the other citizens and how their town was run. Who was the leader/mayor, government, and so on? You can read about their brutality which was far more evil than the current terrorists of extremism in Islam in such books as the Foxe’s book of martyrs. These terrorists were the Roman Catholic Church and the period has become known as the Roman Inquisition of the 12th through 17th centuries.

Why bring this up? Because the parallels are serious and the method of protection for oneself should be also. If you saw these killers you should identify them quickly and then remove their the threat to your society — you don’t protect the people by ignoring the obvious signs.

This is a pattern repeated down through out history in many if not most countries by different religions or forms of humanism. People too often and quite easily kill other people for the unwillingness to join the power holder of the moment. Whether it is genocide in Africa, Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, USA, France, Russia, China, and so on. Human beings kill other human beings and if you want to survive and have the norms and way of living in your culture and society the least unaffected by the murderers you HAVE to immediately identify the threat and neutralize it either by locking them away or killing them. Peace through strength not ignorance.

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A hole story

You hire a crew of 10 people each equipped with a bulldozer and send them to point X and tell them to dig a hole and not stop till you come and tell them to.
You hire a crew of 2 with shovels and after a week send them to point X and tell them to pick up the dirt that has been dug out of the hole and put it back in the hole.
Meanwhile the diggers keep digging.
And digging.
Now look at the pile of dirt – that is debt.
Look at the hole – that is the deficit.
The hole will keep growing until I make it stop.
I have no intention – that is the government.

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