We don't want Syria.

Years of civil war have cost the livelihood and lives of millions.

We don't want Syria. No vast wealth. There's nothing there but sand and death.
~ Our president, 02 Jan 2019

Nothing there but sand and half a million who've died. And five million who've fled the country for their lives, leaving home and everything behind. And six million still inside the country who've been driven from their homes by the war.  More than a thousand children were killed or injured just in the first two months of last year.

There's nothing there we care about there, nothing we need to be concerned about, at least according to this administration.

Having been welcomed into the homes of just a few like these, having met many of their children, I cannot begin to grasp what is behind such thinking.

Truth, and the President

This is not criticism, just an objective observation and question.

Trump seems to fabricate his own version of truth rather frequently, or at least it seems that way to me.   

He visited our troops in Iraq a few days ago and bragged at length about how he had gotten them a 10% pay raise, about how he had fought against others who had said it should be small.  He went on to say they hadn't had a raise in ten years, so he'd fought on their behalf and won and given them a huge raise.  He made similar claims at the Naval Academy in May, "First time in 10 years. We got you a big pay increase. First time in over 10 years. I fought for you. That was the hardest one to get, but you never had a chance of losing."

The claims in each case were false.  The truth -- like every previous year, the military is getting their regular cost of living raise, 2.6% this year.  There was no plan or discussion for a larger raise.  Just one among many inaccurate statements on most major issues.

Update: 02 Jan 19 -- He claimed to have fired Secretary of Defense James Mattis.  False.  Mattis formally resigned in protest against policy decisions by the president.  

Recent analyses of his public comments indicate the rate of significant false statements by our president has increased from two or so per day during his first year to four or five times that number.  Multiple sources are available for such review.

We all perhaps agree with some of the decisions he's made, but if facts and truth aren't part of the process, where does that leave us?  I'm stumped trying to understand why an intelligent person would do that on virtually every significant issue, especially when he had advisors with facts available.     

Objectively, what do we see?

Many are blindly accepting his statements.

The Practical Necessity of Humility

We trust our judgement and believe we know best.  Not a problem at the grocery store, or at least not much of one, when you're deciding between apples.

Deciding for a nation, however, a wise leader listens intently, working to understand, realizing there can be unintended consequence for those served.  A wise leader humbly acknowledges there is much more to every circumstance, listens to those who disagree, and decides with an awareness that life and death are in the balance.

The wise listen and learn.  That's why they're wise.

Profession or Practice

We are guided in our lives by principles and values, things we were taught, perhaps, and which we've evaluated and adopted as worthy.  So, regarding those principles, our foundation for beliefs and behavior ... 

Our definitions require some practical clarity.

Important choices can require difficult work, honest analysis

Honesty, integrity, unselfishness, and love -- those are the standards we profess and toward which we strive.  These are not feelings we have.  They are the standards for actions we take, and the bar is a high one.

Arrogance and pride, greed and envy, anger, excess, and self -- those are the fail points, the corruption of any good intent.  Easily recognized in others, these are almost invisible to our self-awareness.  It's a difficult task for everyone.

The principles we profess versus the values we practice ... living a principled life can be challenging.

Sr Advisor to the Officer for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at Department of Homeland Security August 2010 to July 2018

Scott Shuchart was senior staff at the DHS. He quit after officials ignored legal and ethical concerns that he and others raised over the separation of children from their parents at the border.

"... family separation was ... a deliberate human rights violation that senior members of the Administration wanted to undertake—where ... doing harm was the point.  Like use of military force, the idea of separating families was to use the fact of child trauma to change their parents’ behavior. I thought that was illegal (contrary to treaties and to the substantive due process prong of the Fifth Amendment), un-American, and seriously wrong."  

The courts have agreed.  It was and is illegal and an ethical failure of this administration and many appointees.

"Congress needs to undertake real oversight of what has happened in DHS in the last few years .... And I would love to have some further scrutiny of particular things that have gone very badly, such as Custom and Border Protection’s inability to keep records on the parents and children it separated, though there’s also some litigation that should bring those facts out too."

We profess our Christian values, we sing the songs in church, and we want to be right-thinking.  Then we make choices, day after day, year after year.  Sometimes, we get close to the standard,  and sometimes we're in the cesspool of corruption, and we're barely aware of the difference.  Unless ...
We have to continually pull back from the press of life and others, at least long enough to be reminded of what the standard is for right choice.  We face hard decisions every day.

• If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
• Defend the weak, uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed, rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
• If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
• By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Our interestingly polarized culture has retreated from many moral standards in recent decades.  It leaves one to wonder if perhaps our current chaotic environment is intended to pull back the curtain so we can see a bit more clearly who we have become.

Selfish or Not

"Why are people so cruel to the poor?"  ... an interesting question offered to me.

Six thousands refugees have died along the U.S./Mexico border
since 2000, and another 40,000 died around the world.
Just trying to survive ....

I’ve often wondered about choices. It seems that every possibility in front of us falls into one of only two categories; 
- I choose to benefit myself alone, or 
- I choose to include the good of others. 
The first is selfish, the second is not.

Choosing personal advantage, personal advance, personal profit can be selfish when compared to a choice that benefits others too.

Choices for personal pleasure across the spectrum of friendship, affection, and intimacy fall out similarly.  Hmmm.  Selfish or not.

Life choices as we give of ourselves to family and career, principle, faith and reason will all reflect our preference ….

A life of selfishness is a precipitous decline, repeatedly self-justifying wrong as though it were right and reasonable.

Each has a story, a reason for leaving their homeland.

And so we come to the question about poor … and to every other classification we apply to folks different from ourselves.  Our preference, either to include the good of others or to serve ourself alone, will determine how we relate and interact, how we affect the lives around us.

She's been walking for five weeks, 

carrying her daughters, aged 2 & 4.

Abandoned by the girls' father, she's

lived at the edge of survival.  She hopes

there will be help available somewhere.

As individuals, we choose to be selfish maggots or not.  Along the way, we are often influenced by others which can lead to collective selfishness.  The pervasive result is individual and cultural prejudice, discrimination, oppression, and cruelty, as we’ve seen through history.

Perhaps the worst of such selfishness is when one leads others astray.  For just one example, Hitler propagandized Jews as a criminal contamination of the country, and many people ... by believing, they chose the destruction of their own souls along with the minds and lives of their children.  The collective legacy is despised, a foul cesspool.    

If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, we’re warned, it would be better for them to have a great stone tied to their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea ... do whatever it takes, regardless of the price, to stay far, far away from that cesspool.

Some will indeed be led astray as leaders proclaim superiority vs. inferiority, they're liars or criminals and rapists ....

There will be many who learn the lesson, early or late, who will live graciously and with a good heart toward others. They’ll raise noble children, they’ll encourage so many along the way, and they’ll help those who could use a hand.  At the end, their lives will have been valuable beyond measure.

Cultures can be open and helpful, sometimes. Selfishness often corrupts good intent, and thoughtful individuals find themselves facing a difficult world.   Difficult, but perhaps not impossible ... to have a good heart toward others.

Bullying, Observant Children, and Today's Opportunity

Threats, insults, slander, and assault - these are the bully’s strategy of control through intimidation.

- “You weren’t thinking; you never do.”
- “What a stupid question… you ask a lot of stupid questions.”
- “She’s a loser who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.”

The bully learns such behavior from parents and others.  Their typical environment includes:

- frequent and escalating verbal conflict; attack, lie, deny, attack
- authoritarian control, i.e., my way or the highway
- loyalty required above ethics or conscience

Why do victims and witnesses allow this to continue?   Some are overwhelmed.  Some side with the abuser in their cause, no matter how harmful it may be. For others, the chaos brings hope that things will improve, and they become peacemakers to minimize the damage.  It is typically short-lived because the perpetrator thrives on chaos and control.

There are a few who refuse to accept abuse and stand up against it.  But then there are the enablers who stand by and watch and do nothing to challenge or end it. Lastly, there are those who cheer him on, relieved that they are not on the receiving end of his tirades.  The last two groups are complicit in the ongoing harm and life disruption.

Healthy response:
     - Recognize the behavior and the ego-centric absence of empathy.
     - Label it as it is – untruthful, disrespectful, malicious, deliberate harm.
     - Teach your children (age appropriately) in conversation and by example; these days are a great opportunity to learn through what they see.  Talk about honesty, integrity, respect, accountability, and self-control.  Talk about helping others, making a difference, and caring.  Show them how.

"I’ve become all too familiar with terminology like gas-lighting, and flying monkeys. I recognize the way he weasels out of his intolerable behavior by trying to apply that sick and twisted logic that only narcissists do to trick people into believing that *technically* what he’s doing isn’t wrong. I watch his devotees, who have backed themselves into a corner by investing so much of their own identities into their relationship to him, be a part of his flying monkey brigade.

It does remind me so much of my abusive childhood that unfortunately pitted me against my sister, and vice versa, just to survive it." – T.D.

Unlike growing up in abusive family, from which one can launch into an independent life, the continuing chaos and distrust brought on by the words and deeds of leadership today cannot be as easily overcome. Knowing the signs, recognizing when one’s perception is accurate or inaccurate, seeking support from discerning individuals, getting involved sociopolitically, getting info from legitimate sources, doing a fact check, if so inclined, and voting — these are perhaps ways to mitigate the impact on your life and family.

Open and objective conversation with those who think differently would perhaps be appropriate as well, but quite a challenge for most of us.