Basic Rethinking

Today we will visit three quotes that stand on their own for logic and truth.  In our complicated world and fast paced lives, logic and truth are easily sidetracked. We can lose our attention. The big ideas become obscured. Our basic instincts are shadowed.

Jimmy Carter, 39^th President of the US, shared this thought:

“If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don’t.”

Remind yourself that Carter is a Baptist. He is very serious about his religious beliefs and has lived his life based on those beliefs. He is also a deep thinker and philosopher. He dwells on the big ideas and dreams major dreams of what the world can become, what the American ideal is and can become. He remains true to his convictions. He did not create the above quote as a quip or joke. He means it.

And yet our nation continues to preach to itself that it is good, wonderful and Christian. If that were so a lot of things would be different than they are.

I think we need to be honest about that. And then have good serious discussions about what we truly want for the long term. For America. For its people. And for the people of the world.

Harry Patch was the last surviving soldier of World War I. A British soldier, Patch was born June 17, 1898 and died July 25, 2009 at 112. Harry said this about war:

            “War is organised murder, and nothing else.”

As necessary as war is at times, it remains hideous and costly in terms of lives lost and disrupted, and maimed. Hopefully the aims of the war action are worth the losses. Far better if war were avoided entirely. This being a human planet that hope is probably not realistic.

War involves intentional killing of people. Each side of the dispute believes they are right. Thus the killing goes on until cooler heads prevail and settle the matter. But organized murder it remains. Patch was correct.

Noam Chomsky (born December, 1928) is a professor at MIT and a towering intellectual, author of 100 or more books. He is a cognitive scientist and logician. He frequently comments on political matters. He is often described as the father of modern linguistics.  He provides this quote for our consideration:

“As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.”

Spend some time thinking about Chomsky’s words. Ponder them a bit. I think he is spot on.  Far too many people in our country don’t pay attention to government, its operations, its policies, and flow of decisions over time. Instead they go about their lives living the details big and small, important and unimportant. Absorbed with the details they lose sight of the big issues going on around them.

Wanting the next new gadget, newest fashion, or a bauble to sparkle on the wrist or finger, we tend to pay attention to earning a living that will afford the wants in our lives. Being an avid consumer (when can I afford to buy the new car? And when will we be able to buy a new house or at least add on to this one?) distracts us from other things.

It is a short trip to focusing blame for other problems on people we don’t know. Even easier if we somehow label ‘those people’ as inferior, different from us, and very blame-able. Again, distracted from what is really important.

And the decision makers we elect or allow having control over our lives in large corporations and policy making institutes, are free to do their own thing to feed their appetites of power and wealth.

The nation slips away from the masses. The democratic decision makers are the voters. But they make few decisions or even agendas if they are too distracted. Not a bad strategy for those seeking power. Over you. And you!

Critical thinking begins with good education and exercising the power of reading, fact gathering and an honest seeking of facts and truth. How much of that is going on in America today?  Honestly. How much?

This is not a rhetorical question. It is a serious one in need of answers.

I think it is time for us to rethink the basics. And then live by them. Distractions have moved us away from the basics for too long. Ideologues have kidnapped the nation in the meanwhile.

How do we get our nation back? And how do wed rethink the basics?

June 12, 2014