Imagine a world

It's a surprise to realize there's little difference between a self-centered bully and a killer. The only thing that keeps a bully from killing every time they're inconvenienced or annoyed is that it would get them in trouble.  They'll do what they can get away with.


In the decision to do harm to another, the only constraints are morals and penalties.  As the moral element has already been weakened in the bully's mind, the remaining constraints are legal and cultural penalties.

Imagine a world with no rules.  From an early age, our children would tend to violence.  Absent some extraordinary moral stance, each would find occasion for doing deliberate harm to another.  Parents would find themselves struggling to raise good-hearted kids in a violent world, a world where the cultural barriers to destructive behavior are missing.

... a world where the barriers to destructive behavior are missing?

Actually, we're all familiar with that problem and the moral changes that follow.  We've been watching it happen for decades.

Insulating young children from destructive
influences is becoming progressively
less possible.

For instance ... 

Broad sexualization, particularly at earlier developmental stages 
Now common among preteens along with the commensurate disease and relational problems, our abandoning of sexual boundaries has blossomed into a multi-billion dollar porn industry, human trafficking and child exploitation, national redefinition of marriage and family, the broken relational context between parents and children, and the erosion of commitment between partners.

Vaccination for STDs now considered normal
and necessary for all children.

Before the 70's, the general stance of abstinence until marriage, etc., had been the understood standard of right-thinking, but much had changed following the war years.

Today, the process of sexualization unavoidably burdens our pre-teens and tweens.  Should an 8 year old get a body-waxing to remove visible hair on her legs?  Should a 12 year old need to worry about a bikini wax?

It's troubling enough to see young folks overplaying the sexual attraction card.  It's oddly bizarre to see preteens, with parental support, involved in the same game before they even know what it means.  Such activities are brain and life shapers.

Have you noticed that kids don't stand by the street waiting for the school bus without parental supervision?  Just fifty years ago, children and dogs ran free.

Western culture has morphed on many issues; change came slowly, it progressed inexorably.  Is our current cultural position on sexuality and behavior a good one?  Is it smarter or more beneficial than the one from which we've evolved?  There are some troublesome issues ...

Out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. From around 4% in the 60's, it is now more than 40%.  Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families.  Each is more likely to be trapped in poverty, more likely to suffer a variety of impediments to life.

The Father Factor

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US DoH/Census); 5 times the average. 

• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes; 32 times the average. 
• 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes; 20 times the average. (CDC) 
• 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes; 14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26) 
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes; 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report) 
• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes; 10 times the average. 
• Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. 
• Children with fathers who are involved in their lives are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school. They are 70% less likely to drop out of school. They are more likely to get A’s in school. They are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

This is just one of many change categories.  Most areas of life are changing, and some are troubling ...

• Commercialization of life purpose
• The divorce between business for profit and business for service
• The exaggeration of capitalism to the threshold of depriving others of the means to live
• The trivialization of character and reason, perhaps best exemplified by reality television
• Polarization of the public forum

Note that discussion on the subject today will include the observation that there's always been such change.  True, yet when seen in the larger context of civilizations in turmoil, such change is significant.

So as we observe what we've done, it's clear that just making rules is no solution.  We've made rules and managed to apply them and to justify doing so despite the destructive outcomes.  So how might we, as a culture and as a nation, be changed for the better?  What would it take?
  
Now, imagine a world where we've agreed to value character more than bling, caring more than having, and serving others more than winning.  What would it be like to live in a world without Kardashians in the limelight?

Beside still waters ... or not.

It would be nice, but courage and character are not formed in peaceful times beside still waters.

Liberal vs Conservative vs ...

The difference between liberals and conservatives, we're told, is that liberals think we should be equal at the finish line, and conservatives think we should be equal at the starting line. I'd been wondering what it was about that idea that bothered me.

New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin stumbled and fell, accidentally tripping Abbey D’Agostino of the US.

Abbey got up first and helped Nikki back to her feet — but Abbey had injured her leg in the fall.

When it gave way and she fell back to the track seconds later, Nikki helped her up and stayed by her side to make sure she was OK.

Nikki only resumed the race
when she knew Abbey was able to walk on her own, and she waited at the finish line to greet her as she hobbled through the pain to complete the race.

Nikki Hamblin says, “I went down, and I was like, ‘What’s happening? Why am I on the ground?’

“Then suddenly there was this hand on my shoulder and she said: ‘Get up, get up, we have to finish this.’ I was like: ‘Yup, you’re right. This is the Olympics. We have to finish this.'”

She described Abbey D’Agostino as 'an amazing woman'.  The pair had never met before the collision.

Our greatest performance doesn't have to occur in the public arena or during the biggest sporting event of our lives. Sometimes we are at our best when we can put our own goals aside and help someone finish the course.

What if ... ?

... it was you and your family?  Looking for work.

The economic downturn that began in December 2007 was associated with a rapid rise in unemployment and with an especially pronounced increase in the number of long-term unemployed.  Of those who lost full-time jobs between 2007 and 2009, only about half were employed again by 2010.

If that was your family, what would you have done for the years?  Scrambling for work became the norm for the 8.8 million workers (BLS) that previously had been employed full time.  So you applied everywhere you could, but there weren't any jobs.  You lived on your spouse's salary perhaps and on whatever savings you might have had.  Unemployment, food stamps, ....

There just weren't any jobs to be had.  The economy stabilized by '10, but recovery wasn't easy for the long-term unemployed.  It was a life changer for all of them.  Opportunities disappeared, kids' college vanished, retirement receded into the distant neverland.  Roughly 7 million families lost their homes during the great recession, and 2.5 million businesses were shuttered.  American households lost roughly $16 trillion of net worth.

That was the Great Recession, brought to you by Wall Street and the finance industry.  

Poverty is done to you.  It's not something you choose.  Is that true?

Today, 23% of our children live in poverty.  That means they don't eat well, their health will suffer, they live in higher crime areas, their education will often be interrupted, their home life will be insecure, and most will be exposed to street violence, gangs, drugs, and the death of a friend or family member from that environment.  Dads who can't provide for their families tend to disappear or die.  Single moms will face difficult choices for survival.

They should just get a job, right?  But remember, ... there aren't any.  

Too, a full time job at the federal minimum wage means you can afford $375 for housing, but the median one-bedroom rental is $1000+.  You'd need three full-time jobs to afford it.  Part of the reason, the minimum wage is worth 25% less than it was fifty years ago.

So for those children living in poverty ... they didn't choose that dilemma for themselves, and their parents didn't either.  Poverty isn't something you choose, it's done to you, or at least that was Nelson Mandela's take on the subject.  Interestingly, sociologists and economists agree, poverty is done to you.

You might appreciate a look at poverty from a different perspective.  It's perhaps worth noting that conservatives commonly blame the behavior of the poor for their poverty citing drugs and alcohol, gangs and crime, and the 'sinful choices' folks make.  Liberals commonly blame the rich for exploitation of the workforce, of resources, and their influence on government policies.  So who's right and who's wrong?  Both, pretty much all the time.

Poverty is complex with interrelated and unrelated causes. Society's responsibility is just to do their part.  There's much that can be done to make a lasting difference.  Curious what works?  Take a look at what the UN University came up with.

You might appreciate Wealth vs. Ethics as well.

Boxed!

Ever notice how we're stuck with choosing between two cesspools.  Government of the people, by the people, blah blah, we're stuck, at least for now.

If you're pro-life, you're stuck with the big-business candidate who favors the wealthy and is opposed to healthcare.  You can't vote pro-life and pro-health and pro-education at the same time.

If you're pro-equality and anti-poverty, you're stuck with the big-government candidate and with trade policies favoring the wealthy.  You can't vote to address economic inequality without endorsing massive indebtedness for your grandchildren at the same time.

If you're looking deeper than the tv screen, you know some government policies do more harm than good, but neither cesspool is getting pumped out and cleaned up any time soon.

Pick your cesspool.  Our largest political parties along with the media have polarized the nation and limited the debate to just two sides, ignoring the fact that there are more positions of significance than just the two we're offered.  It simplifies their job, of course.  All they have to do is keep us fighting the two-sided battle.


We're boxed, and without a venue for a real public forum. The next decades will be a blast. Only figuratively, we hope.

Among the issues, most of which will not be addressed:

• big pharma price gouging because by rule, they can
• med costs skyrocketing because by rule, insurance must pay it
• college costs up 800% since govt instituted student loans
• economic inequality booming; the richest 10% got 98% of economic gains for the last 40 years.
• the financial industry continues to clobber the world without accountability.

And the list goes on.  It's not a comfortable world for people of faith, nor are the problems we face simple, one-sentence issues.  If our hope is built on government, we're likely to be disappointed.

In the meantime, there are many things we might do, are there not?

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." — Noam Chomsky, American Linguist and US Media and Foreign Policy critic.  Is he right?

Which is better - slavery or poverty?

Between 1525 and 1866, the era of the New World slave trade, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Only 10.7 million survived the passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.

During the time slavery was legal in the United States, perhaps 100,000 slaves escaped to freedom.  If you found yourself in slavery, your likelihood of an exit other than death was less than 1%.

If you find yourself below the poverty line today, you'll have perhaps a 50% chance of finding a way up and out. That's such an improvement.  Of course.  But ...

Recent studies have shown the United States to be less mobile than in decades past and less mobile today than other OECD countries. Around 40% of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes are stuck there for the rest of their lives. Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, rich folks tend to stay at the top and regular folks stay at the bottom, as do their children according to research by the Economic Mobility Project.

The economic mobility of African-Americans compared to that of whites is revealing. Half of blacks born in the bottom income quintile remain there as adults, while only a third of whites do.  Research has also found that the children of black middle-class families are more likely to fall out of the middle class.

Besides overt racial discrimination, explanations include the better access of wealthy families to superior schools and prep schools.  Better credentials mean better jobs and better pay. For the non-wealthy, wages have been stagnant for four decades despite improved productivity. College costs have increased 800% in that same time frame.  The sheer size of the income gap makes it harder to climb the proverbial income ladder as the rungs are progressively farther apart.

So to the question of which is better between slavery and poverty, the answer is another question ... are those few steps toward equality and justice enough?

If we're the wealthiest and most successful country in the world, why do 20%+ of our children live in poverty and food insecurity today?  Those born into poverty in America, they're likely to be trapped there and their children as well.  It's not like that elsewhere in the developed world.

The bottom 90% made more money 30 years ago.  In today's dollars, the bottom 90 percent of U.S. earners averaged $33,526 in 1979 and $30,438 in 2012.  The top 10 percent averaged $144,418 in 1979 and $254,449 in 2012. That's about 76 percent growth.  PolitiFact Jan 13, 2015

So, have we adequately addressed inequality?  Do we understand the one-way flow of wealth from our extraordinary workforce exclusively to the elite?  Or have we missed the goal for 90% of our citizenry.

The federal minimum wage was enacted to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the
maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and
general well-being of workers.”  Despite these intentions, the federal minimum
wage has failed to keep up with the rising cost of  living, and has instead
become a wage mechanism that keeps working people in poverty.
Now after years of public protest and exploding welfare
costs, some employers are beginning to change
the way they treat employees.  Just a few.

Does either political party offer a reasonable explanation and plan of action?  Granted, neither party perhaps actually planned to abuse the citizenry.  Both, however, are culpable for the impediments faced by the non-elite, and especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder who neither chose nor deserve what they've endured.

True or false?
If it's true, what must I do differently?