The Process of Morality?

A question that is often in the social consciousness recently is the Question being asked of Atheists: 

“How do you know what is right or wrong if you don’t believe in God?”

Of course, the “pat” answer is the one always pushed by theistic overlords, which says that atheists don’t know, so they feel free to act immorally.  Thus, to be an atheist is to be immoral and evil.  Naturally, atheists disagree, as we all do actually have morals, and many of us feel our morals are superior to those of religious people, in the main because we actually have to go through a process of decision making to get there, while theists don’t. (Theoretically.  As I will note later, people are complicated, and none of us are usually that dogmatic about this.)

But just HOW do we get there?  How to explain to theists who do not know (and to new atheists as well) what that process is?  What are the issues, and how does one make up one’s mind?  Let’s step through the process, talking about those issues as we go.  Be aware, this is a complicated issue, and to do this in any manageable manner, I’m going to have to simplify things a bit.

First, I am NOT a philosopher.  I am not trained in any professional sense in either the field of philosophy nor logic.  I was exposed at one time (high school) to both in my studies in Latin (because I had an awesome Latin teacher), but I can in no wise claim any expertise in either field.  So, the following is just me.  If you have such training, and see any obvious errors as a result of that lack, feel free to jump in.  I won’t be insulted, unless you intend to insult me, and it’s obvious.  Otherwise, I’ll be glad to discuss that problem.

To simply this a bit, I’m going to look at four subgroups of people.

Theists who make a decision that something is good.

Theists who make a decision that something is bad.

Atheists who make a decision that something is good.

Atheists who make a decision that something is bad.

Obviously, the category of “theists” is a very broad one.  Their morals are often different in particular ways.  But, mostly, their beliefs are bound by some sort of Scripture.  It may be something dictated by a deity, it may be something dictated by past masters (or clerics) in that particular religious practice.  The commonality is broadly the idea that morals are dictated by some authority.  It may be centralized, it may not.  But generally, people are guided by that authority, and not primarily by their own thought processes.

Also, with Atheism, naturally, that definition is one that encompasses mainly the belief that there are no deities.  Note here that atheists may have a widely differing spectrum of political thought and practices, and come from virtually every culture in the world.  Thus, the cultural influences will be broadly different.  We’ll get to that later.  But, the fact that atheists may have differing POLITICAL ideals certainly shows that other influences on their morals are as widely varied as the cultural influences.  So, keep these in mind as we examine these processes.

One last thing.  This is examining a process.  I’m not saying that any of these four subcategories are about a lifestyle of good or bad, either as theists or atheists.  People are complicated, and any or all of us are capable of making a decision about what to do in a particular instance that may, objectively, seem good or bad at any one time.  The NEXT time we are in a position to make such a decision, we might make the completely opposite one.  So, be aware that I am not making any value judgements here about lifestyles.  This is about how people determine morality - the decision PROCESS, and how that determines our actions.  On THAT, I reserve the right to make value judgements.

-  Theists who make a decision that something is good.

Now, in the popular paradigm of the Question, “How do you know what is right or wrong if you don’t believe in God?”, obviously, the implication is that people who believe in God are guided by His hand as revealed in the Bible. (Or, possibly, in a wider context, by a holy Scripture not Christian). This presupposes that all such believers take their morals from that Scripture, and ONLY from that Scripture.  I would contend that this is false, at least in general.  Everybody lives in the cultural environment in which they live.  (For the purposes of this essay, I’ll assume that is where they were born, and that as theists, their upbringing raised them in the most popular religion of their birthplace.)

As an example, let us look at Female Genital Mutilation.  FGM, as it is known, is a horrible practice that involves the mutilation of the female outer genitals - the Vulva, with terrible results.  (You can look this up, as the details are not relevant to this essay). It is practiced across Northern Africa and into parts of the Middle East.  It is NOT a religious requirement at all, as it is practiced by both Christians and Muslims in the countries where it is generally allowed, and neither religion addresses the practice at all.

But, it is considered not only common, but REQUIRED by the cultures in which it is practiced, in order to make women obey the sexual restrictions of those cultures.  It is considered “good”.  And not at all by Scripture, although some clerics in those areas may fall back on that excuse.  It is a strong influence, not from Scripture, but by culture.

Other cultures consider that practice anathema and forbid it, but, again, not as a religious practice, but as a cultural one.  In both cases, the resulting practice, either to do it or to forbid it, is very strong.  But, in actual practice, religious scripture is irrelevant to those decisions.

So, we see that even theists make decisions about morality based on things that are not “revealed” by their deity, but also on cultural traditions.  This is ignored by those who ask the above Question.  One can reinforce this point when one sees how Scripture often condones practices once considered “good” in ancient societies but “bad” in modern ones, such as slavery, or even genocide.  These formerly condoned practices are today illegal in virtually every society in the world, yet, at least in Christian Scripture, neither one has been removed or noted as currently discouraged.  Thus the waters are muddied considerably when asking people to use Holy Scripture as a guide.  Cultural influences in modern societies rarely coincide well with ancient writings.

- Theists who make a decision that something is bad.

Making a decision about what is bad is equally fraught with a minefield of such problems, if one is trying to use Holy Scripture as a guide.  Taking the Bible as an example (mainly because I am writing this in the context of a largely Christian controlled culture), there are some hard restrictions that do not match modern cultural influences, in which those modern cultural influences overshadow the biblical pronouncements of “badness”.

The most popular ones are the biblical restrictions on eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics.  Not being a Biblical scholar any more than I am a philosopher, I can’t tell you what the purposes of those restrictions may have been when the Hebrew priests wrote down those verses over two thousand years ago.  There may have been some very good reasons, perhaps having to do with either keeping shellfish fresh or with class restrictions on who could wear different fabrics.  Who knows today?  Biblical scholars or historians, perhaps.  Not me.

But the point is that in today’s Western societies, neither of these things are considered “bad”.  One is perfectly free to wear mixed fabrics, as much as one is free to eat shellfish or not, in spite of the very firm restrictions on them in holy scripture.  Oh, some clerics will tell you that the “laws” in the “Old” Testament are no longer valid, because of some verses in the “New” Testament.  But, those same clerics will turn the other cheek and tell you out of the OTHER side of their mouths that the Old Testament prohibition against homosexuality is still perfectly valid!

Which also muddies the water when good and well intentioned people try to use Holy Scripture to decide what to do or not to do.

- Atheists who make a decision that something is good.

One cannot pretend that atheists live free of religious influences.  All across the globe, in all cultures and in all religious places, there are those who do not believe the offerings of those who tout invisible magical beings for moral guides.  Unfortunately, in most places, those religions are the major influences on the legal and moral sets of values that the cultures they exist in require their people to live by.  In the US, it is relatively easy to camouflage one’s lack of religious belief and appear to conform to the common cultural practices of the locality in which one lives, at least in general.

In many places around the world, that is infinitely more difficult, as in some places being an atheist will get you seriously dead.  So, let’s just pretend for a moment that we are talking about those who, publicly, have the ability to choose their own moral values with which to guide one’s actions.  After all, having to camouflage one’s existence by copying the actions of one’s neighbors and family as they obey the strictures of their holy works isn’t having the freedom to choose one’s morals, is it?  Thus, for these poor atheists, the Question above is irrelevant.

But, in general, as one is free to choose, there are many ways in which one can reach out for information to guide one’s decisions.  One can look at history to get an idea of how one’s actions can work out in the context of one’s culture.  What works?  What generally turns out well?  What are, for example, the results of common practice on, say, marriage?  What is legal, what isn’t?  How do other people deal with a cheating spouse?  If it is legal, can I justify an affair?  What may that affair do to the welfare of my kids?  Or to the attitudes of my parents, or in-laws?  My boss?

One is free to look at all the data and decide that a course of action is perfectly fine - one may have married with an agreement together that an open marriage allows for sexual freedom, as long as certain rules are followed.  This may not conform with traditional ideas of marriage, but then American culture decided several decades ago that the government has no business poking its nose into people’s private lives, thus laws restricting sexual activity outside of marriage were done away with.  The same generally true in most Western societies.

Of course, cultural influences don’t always allow an atheist to perfectly follow their own ideals, as living in a more religious locality can restrict one’s ability to take free action similar to more restrictive countries in which religion is a major reflector of the law.  Social constraints are often harsh.  Just because the law says you can do something and the government cannot stop you doesn’t mean you don’t have social consequences to deal with if you violate social restrictions.  Of course, inside the US, those consequences rarely involve death.  For many, however, they can be severe on a personal level.

But even if mild, they are something atheists will probably take into account in some ways.  Generally, however, other considerations are paramount.  Who does this hurt?  Does this benefit me without hurting someone else, or will it come back to bite me on the ass someday? (Or perhaps someone close to me?)  Is this something that could help others while being good for me?  Or, how can I do this and mitigate the possible negative consequences for someone else?

The questions one asks will be consistent with one’s life philosophy.  Or, one’s political beliefs, alternatively.  There are atheists who are decidedly Libertarian in belief, and the questions they will ask are fundamentally different from the questions a Liberal atheist will ask.  Which will also be different from the questions a Conservative atheist might consider.

Believe it or not, it is entirely possible that an atheist could conform quite closely to the values of his/her community if their political philosophy is similar to the religious folks living in that locality.  In many US cities and States, one can see social values that are probably more due to political values than religious ones, and often, those values are diametrically opposed to “traditional” conservative Christian values.  The rapid rise of the acceptance of marriage equality around the US is an excellent example of this.

- Atheists who make a decision that something is bad.

Again, political values are often more important to this process than pure cultural values.  After all, in many families, that political culture is more important than religion in a growing segment of the public.  As the sheer numbers of people to whom religion is not relevant enough to matter to their lives (even if they nominally identify as theist) grows to an even greater percentage of the American public, one has seen a growing divide in relative values in political discourse.

At one time, one could count fairly well on the proposition that Christian values would be politically important to a wide segment of the public.  Religious leaders of Christian denominations enjoyed (and in some cases still do) wide acclaim and respect, and often influence a significant percentage of the voters.

In what I think is a significant development, the Conservative movement in the US has been reduced in percentage considerably in recent decades, to the point that the Republican Party has collectively decided that it is necessary for them to begin to depend on subterfuge such as gerrymandering and denial of voting rights to minorities likely to vote Democratic to remain in power.  More and more Americans seem to have decided that the dependency of the conservatives on the Religious Right is not a good thing, and this seems to have had a remarkable affect on the numbers of Americans abandoning religion and/or religious organizations in recent decades.  It is generally agreed that the majority of the category of “nones” have tended to move towards a liberal political set of values.

As with atheists who decide that something is good, those who decide something is bad are also using those influences of culture and politics to come to their conclusions.  Nobody lives in a vacuum, and atheists are no exception.  In fact, I believe atheists are increasingly becoming more influential in the body politic.  Not publicly, of course. It is still politically wise to mimic a Christian while running for office, but that doesn’t mean that closely held secular values aren’t beginning to be felt.   It is remarkable that even after the Republican Party has successfully managed to gain control of all three Branches of government, their failure to enact more than a handful of Conservatively leaning policies is so obvious.  The failure of the Republicans to repeal “ObamaCare” is only the tip of that iceberg, but is the poster child of their failure to force their values into policy.

It is my opinion that this is due to secular people in disguise acting secretly to confound and frustrate the right wing religious fanatics.  In other words, atheists (or nones) deciding that Conservatism is bad, combined with weaker believing theists using modern cultural influences to counter traditional Christian values in the public sphere.

In Conclusion

Life is complicated.  Nothing is ever simple, and the emotions, opinions, values, and actions of people are no exception.  While every person has something outside of themselves they hold to be most important in its influence on them (whether they know it or not), there are still multiple influences which combine to water down that larger element.

Yes, even religious people.  In fact, I would argue that there really isn’t a lot of difference between the religious folks and unbelievers in how they set the values they hold closest in influencing their actions.  One set of folks may hold one source more important, the existence of the others are often more important than they might realize.

However, the existence of those who are adamantly holding to written scriptures to make those decisions (and want to force ALL of us to do the same) is hugely influential in the world, and is a major threat to the ability of future generations to make better decisions about life, death, and how to live moving forward.  Any source of values that does not change and react logically to a changing population and cultural environments is a continuing threat to the future of mankind and its development.

So, “How DO you know what is right or wrong if you don’t believe in God?”

Think.

Question.

Get answers.

Decide for YOURSELF.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.  Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of someone else's thinking." (Steve Jobs, at Stanford University, June, 2005) 

Everybody has an ideology, right?

I think by now, anyone who has spent any time reading my timeline and stuff I post on Facebook (much less my blog “The Cybernetic Atheist”) is aware that I am an unapologetic, out-and-out atheist.  No surprise there.  As I’ve explained before, I’m an atheist because of what I’ve learned about the Bible, and from the lack of any real evidence of the existence of God.  (From which I surmise that Christ cannot exist - no Father, no Son, right?  So, Christianity is man-made.)

But, as so many people have noted, and I myself have also said, atheism is not a belief, it is the LACK of a belief.  Over 8,000 gods/goddesses which mankind has invented over the millennia, and I don’t believe in any of them.  For much the same reasons, in fact.

But, isn’t it true that everybody has to have something which guides them?  Some moral compass?  Some (for lack of a better term) ideology?  I think that’s true, and mankind has come up with literally hundreds of such ideologies, if not thousands, in the course of our becoming humankind designing all of the myriads of civilizations (and accompanying gods) which have come and gone since.

Oh, what was that?  What do I believe?

Funny you should ask, I was just about to get to that.

For starters, it also isn’t a surprise to my Facebook friends to note that I seem to be a liberal.  I used to call myself an Independent, but the Republicans have managed to push me much further to the left over the last ten years (though mostly over the last six for obvious reasons).

But there’s more than that, a political ideology isn’t a moral one, as moral as it may be possible for political ideologies to be.

Morally, I like to identify myself with Secular Humanism.  The basic ideals of that group of people resonate with me closely.  Just to make it easier, here is one example of their beliefs:

* A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
* Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
* A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
* A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
* A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
* A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
* A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

Obviously, there are other interpretations and versions of these, Secular Humanism is not a religion and has no universally recognized tenets or principles, though these are a good example of the general direction most Humanists tend to go.

Another principle I admire is one contained in the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm”.  If there is one overriding idea which intertwines itself into virtually all of the above principles, that would be it.  As a human being, into whose DNA the very urge of being a socialist animal is cooked, that seems to be the best guide to living one’s life, if one had to boil it all down to its basic elements.

That, I think, is one of the major differences between Humanism and religion - Christianity being my focus because of where I live.  Why?  Well, just look at the Ten Commandments, which Christians tend to look at (at least the Fundies here do) as the basic guidance provided by their God.

Without belaboring the point, look at the second commandment:

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Look at the passage I underlined.  That is the very opposite of “do no harm”.  To punish the innocent?  For the neglect and disobedience of their ancestors?  (I always kind of thought the jealousy was a sin.)

On the other hand, There is no example of jealousy or hatred in the Humanist principles above.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

Another reason why I think Humanism is better than Christianity (as well as others) is because of longevity.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Secular humanism is merely a couple of hundred years old at the most.  So, what gives?

As a movement, that’s true.  But the principles above are based on literally hundreds of thousands of years of human experience.   While our intellectual experience giving us the ability to express them well is fairly recent comparatively speaking, the basic experiences themselves derive from the totality of human experience going back over two hundred thousand years, fading back into our evolutionary past.  These principles are so well understood that they were expressed, discussed and argued over in various ways even as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, who debated many of these very ideas well over two thousand years ago, predating christianity!

Yet, Christianity is only around two thousand years old, its Jewish antecedents go back perhaps another two thousand or so, and the developmental periods for both religions are rife with violence, tribalism, slavery and misogyny.  Hardly an atmosphere to encourage humanistic principles!  Granted, the Greeks weren’t a prime example of being a hotbed of modern liberal ideals either, but their philosophers fought for the idea of trying to make humanity better than we were, at least some of them did, and their example resonated with the fathers of the Enlightenment thousands of years later!

I firmly believe that religion is, to a general degree, concerned with one thing:  Its own survival.  For an excellent example, look at the first five of the Ten Commandments.  Every one of them are devoted to the preservation of the authority of God and his earthly representatives.  Keeping people in the fold, under the pain of death.  (Perhaps not an earthly one, but if hell isn’t a kind of eternal death, I don’t know what is.)

Certainly the fact that most if not all of His other dozens of commandments/laws in Leviticus command death as a punishment qualify as antithetical to Humanist principles.

Yet, Humanism is not.  Not a single principle above is devoted to ensuring the survival of a “Humanist religion”, mainly because there isn’t one!  The closest one can come is where it says, “A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.”  Which does not at all entail a self serving principle of survival.

As you might have guessed by now, another focus of mine is that of anti-theism.  I am, admittedly, an anti-theist.  I believe strongly that religion, as a belief system(s) which encourages people to believe things which are false and contrary to reality, is harmful to not only individual humans, but humanity as a whole.  Much of my writing is focused on struggling to spread the truth about false beliefs and their harmful affects.

But even that is an outgrowth of my Humanist principles - see the next to last one above.  Religion is not a good introduction to ethical conduct - quite the opposite, in fact, as it encourages a plethora of unethical conduct, mainly by example, which precisely undermines its attempts at ethics through the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus.  There may be millions of Christians who defy this, by being good - but that happens because they adhere to the Enlightenment principles expressed by our Founding Fathers, ignoring the more harmful and violent examples and verses of the Old Testament.  (One can see that, because of the various examples of Christians who do the opposite - adhere to the Old Testament’s more intolerant and violent prescriptions of conduct, and do all they can to undermine and violate the egalitarian principles contained in our Constitution.)

So, to make a long story shorter, while my focus may be on the harmfulness of religion and my attempts to explain how I arrive at those conclusions, my very positive beliefs are what informs that fight, wishing with all my heart that more people could see how much better America and the world would be without the falsehoods of faith.

I hope this helps to make my efforts more understandable.

America's Greatest Shame.

Gitmo.  Guantanamo Bay.  Also known as GTMO and the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp.  Wikipedia says this about it, in part:

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (also called Gitmo or GTMO by the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Coast Guard personnel stationed there[1]) is located on 45 square miles (120 km2) of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which the United States leased for use as a coaling and naval station in the Cuban–American Treaty of 1903. The base is on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Naval Base, and the only U.S. military installation in a country with whom the United States has no diplomatic relations.

It speaks about the Detention Camp thusly:

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the base was used to house Cuban and Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas. In the early 1990s, it held refugees who fled Haiti after military forces overthrew president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. These refugees were held in a detainment area called Camp Bulkeley until United States district court Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr. declared the camp unconstitutional on 8 June 1993. This decision was later vacated. The last Haitian migrants departed Guantanamo on 1 November 1995. 

The Migrant Operations Center on Guantanamo typically keeps fewer than 30 people interdicted at sea in the Caribbean region. 

Beginning in 2002, a small portion of the base was used to detain several hundred alleged combatants at Camp Delta, Camp Echo, Camp Iguana, and the now-closed Camp X-Ray. The US military has alleged without formal charge that some of these detainees are linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. In litigation regarding the availability of fundamental rights to those imprisoned at the base, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the detainees "...have been imprisoned in territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control."[49] Therefore, the detainees have the fundamental right to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. A district court has since held that the "Geneva Conventions applied to the Taliban detainees, but not to members of Al-Qaeda terrorist organization."[50] 

 My attention has been redirected to this facility due to the fact of five detainees (members of the Taliban, thus POWs and not terrorists) being swapped for an American serviceman held by the Taliban for five years.

I am not going to relate the history of the detentions there.  The Wikipedia article has enough of that.

Instead, I am going to note, again, that this facility is, in my opinion, ill-advised at the very least, and at the most, probably illegal.  Certainly, our detention of Al Qaeda personnel there without charge for numerous years is unConstitutional and most probably a violation of International Law.

It sure as hell is a direct violation of everything this country is supposed to stand for.  Our Constitution is the legal blueprint for our nation's government.  It contains the powers that we, as the grantors of that power, allow our government to have and wield.  It also contains certain restrictions on power that prevent the government from doing certain things to people under its control.

Let's look at that statement again.  There is nothing in the constitution that restricts those guarantees of freedom from government over-reach to only citizens of this country.  It repeatedly uses the term "The People".

The restrictions are to government power, and are meant to prevent the government from taking certain actions against people.  Like, for instance, the fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise

infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of

a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval

forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War

or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same

offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be

compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,

nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process

of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without

just compensation.

emphasis mine.

Both phrases are being repeatedly and constantly violated in the case of the Al Qaeda prisoners in Gitmo.  Only about five of them have been afforded some form of due process, and a couple of dozen more are supposedly due for some form of prosecution, but to date have not been charged.

Some of them have been held for over ten years.  WITHOUT CHARGE.

There is also nothing in the Constitution that (contrary to the thinking of the Bush Administration) says that those protections stop at the border.  The constitution is as much in full force and effect anywhere the United States Government operates on soil International Law says is American controlled.  Which includes the United States Navel Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Moving on from the strict legalities, this shit is just wrong.  For decades after World War II, the US has fought against human rights violations by other countries around the world.  We have excoriated them in the press and at the United Nations.  We have held our heads up high and berated other countries' governments using names of all kinds for violating human rights.

Rights which WE are violating at this very moment in the camps at Gitmo.

Hypocrites.  WE are hypocrites.  Our government is being supremely hypocritical by keeping these men in detention while holding others to a higher standard.

The fact that the American People are not demanding an end to those violations means that we ourselves are hypocrites.

Shame on us.

It will take decades of hard work and a perfect record to erase this shame.  The amount of work future generations of Americans will have to do to convince the world that we really are better than that is enormous.

We will likely never live this down.

Close Gitmo, Mr. President.  Close the detention camps.  Either charge the bastards or let them go.  But stop violating the very values our country was founded on.  Defy the Republicans and shame them in front of the entire world.

Our reputation demands it.  Human decency, above all, demands it.

Republicans vs. Vets. and 21st Century Politics

The last week has not been a good one for the Republican Party and their relationship with Vets.

Starting with the Republican refusal to either extend or fund further veteran's benefits (including the refusal to fund 27 more medical facilities), continuing with their open spat with that idiot Congresscritter the other day, and now, ending with Republicans' open vehemence towards the Administration finalizing an agreement with the Taliban to bring home the last POW from Afghanistan, That Grand Old Party is fast moving in the direction of becoming the Grand Old EX-Party as they continue to shoot themselves in the foot, the knee, the nether regions and now straight into their empty, echoing braincase.

How is it that the party whose very self-identification has always been with the military (who they insist can do no wrong) now has put itself into the position of throwing that very military (and Vets) under the bus as they continue their five year long hissy fit over the election of Barrack Hussein Obama?

Have they no shame?  No values?  No morals?

Obviously not, save the one, overriding value of racial hatred towards blacks.  You know, the value they SAY they don't have, but honor exclusively to the exclusion of all others, including patriotism, humanity and common sense.  The one that has turned them into the Party of NO, refusing to give President Obama even the semblance of victory in the most minor of issues, even issues they have no philosophical problems with.

As has been noted before, their brains have apparently been put on hold for the duration of the current Administration's tenure, which is obvious, considering that their actions have alienated the young, the middle aged, every minority group you could imagine,  half of the electorate in the persons of the ladies of our proud nation, public employees of every stripe, including cops, including...

Oh, hell, just say it, everybody in this country who isn't an old, white, Anglo-Saxen, Protestant male.

Trust me, at some point, they'll even manage to piss them off soon, they've already managed to anger the members of that class who are classified as seniors.

No wonder they want to restrict voting!  If they manage to allow anybody in this country who isn't an old, white, Anglo-Saxen, Protestant male Republican to vote, they'll lose.

Frankly, I am seriously beginning to doubt the sanity of the leaders of the Tea Party Movement.  How can they seriously believe that this kind of public tantrum about something they've honored in the past isn't going to alienate even members of their base?  Vets have been a strong contingent of the GOP for decades, and Republicans have had the country fooled into thinking Liberals hated vets for almost as long as I can remember.

But not any more.  They've managed to eviscerate that image in just a few short weeks.

What else can they stand on?   Unless they wake up and begin actually suggesting actual plans and laws to solve this country's problems, there isn't anything.

Once upon a time, politics in this country revolved around two parties debating policy and laws, vying for the citizens' attention and agreement by the manner of that debate.  Yes, it got rancorous, even nasty at times, but you always had two sides to choose from.  (Sometimes three!)

Now, you've got Democrats with real, honest to goodness plans, laws and policies meant to solve America's problems on one side, and on the other side, you've got "We hate that Nigger!"

(Sorry for the trigger word, but it is literally the ONLY one which applies)

The modern Republican Party is the 21st century equivalent of the KKK and its lynching parties, determined to see that the black guy in the White House is never seen as a successful President.

Their voices get more and more shrill as President Obama's last term gets shorter and shorter.  I am NOT going to ask if it can get any worse.

It can.

Memorial Day rant

It was originally my intent to talk briefly about Memorial Day and remembering the people who have died in defense of our liberty.

But I have been increasingly discouraged by the increasingly evident lack of true caring on the part of our government and those who run it for maintaining that liberty and I really don't have the stomach right now for fighting that fight.

What happened?

Seven people died in California this week, victims of our patriarchal society and its misogynistic imbedded hostilities towards women.  There may not seem to be much of a connection, but look at it this way.

Our militaristic, macho-manly oriented society demands that the highest calling a man can aspire to is to be a warrior.  Doesn't matter if you are 4'10 and 110 lbs dripping wet.  Being a warrior is the highest possible calling you can have.

Of course, along with that is the "benefit" that women "love" a man in uniform!  The picture is clear, she'll tear your clothes off, IF those clothes are a uniform.  Because you deserve it!  You are macho, manly and risking your life!

Enter the Men's Rights Advocates.  The guys who maintain that men deserve it all.  Nothing should be denied them, especially love, sex and automatic adoration of the fairer sex.

Our society, from the basic separation of the genders by role and custom, demands certain actions, responses and roles of each sex, and woe be unto the individual who crosses the line.  These basic rules are pressed into the minds of our children from early childhood.  We dress them, give them toys and expect them to stick to the assigned roles, depending on the particular plumbing with which they may be equipped.

The thought that any child may not be hardwired to comply with those arbitrary roles doesn't enter into it.  You will get pounded into the hole you should fit in regardless of your shape.

The perpetrator of the massacre in California IS ultimately responsible for his actions, don't get me wrong.  It is still illegal to kill people for displeasing you, no matter how justified your chosen moral code may slant the facts.  But, it should be illegal for people to be enticed into a cult of moral certitude which denigrates and virtually enslaves half of the population to the point where a member of that cult feels entitled to kill people he imagines have insulted and rejected him in a manner which violates the tenets of the cult's imagined rights and benefits.

Society is as guilty here as he is.  This does not reduce his guilt.  It does not reduce the responsibility he has for his actions.  It spreads that responsibility to others, like a plague which infects any who support and encourage such insanity.

Which, if the truth be known, is all of us who fail to make our displeasure and repugnance known to those who try to perpetuate this attitude.  It is time for us all to drive this ugly patriarchal penchant from out of our society.   Educate your daughters to refuse to knuckle under, and educate your SONS so that they are also outraged by misogyny and hatred towards women.

It is fine and admirable to "fight for women's rights".  To fight for women's rights to health care and reproductive freedom.  To fight for equal pay for equal work.

But it is better and more effective to fight AGAINST patriarchy.  To fight those who hate women and perpetuate the culture of misogyny and rape, subjugation and control.

The other stuff will come automatically if we can defeat the misogynists at the core of the problem.

We need to stop treating the symptoms and start working on the real disease - patriarchy and misogyny.

When we do that, we will end the wars and the need for spending more money on defense than the next ten lower spending countries combined, and the need to add more dead vets to the list of those to remember and memorialize.

I can think of no better way to honor those who have fought for our freedom than by doing OUR part in fighting for that freedom and liberty, right here at home.  For all of us.

This Week's Rant.

Ok, it's been a busy last week and weekend.  Lots of meatspace stuff going on, so I didn't get much chance to write much, but I'm back!  (Hey!  Stop that!  That tomato was rotten!  Make it fresher next time...)

Ahem...

One of the things online this weekend that caught my attention was a couple of posts on Facebook.  I am not going to put names out there on this, I don't want to start a flame war or be seen as calling someone out.

But the posts were links to copies of tweets that a female atheist figure put out there - a fair amount of time ago, from what I saw.  The tweets had to do with members of the military who were harassing her online.  The poster was accusing her of (and one of the tweets mentioned this) contacting the Commanding Officer of a service member she said was harassing her.

I got involved because I just HATE seeing comment threads in posts like that (and this one was rife with some really nasty stuff) calling the female atheists involved some pretty bad names, telling them that they deserved to be raped, anally and elsewhere, and other pretty terrible things.

Shades, in other words, of Elevatorgate.

You remember Elevatorgate, where Rebecca Watson mentioned in passing (five minutes worth of mention) in a speech she was giving at a major atheism convention that guys shouldn't corner women in elevators in the wee hours of the morning, asking if they want to come up to their rooms.  That such situations (where a woman has no retreat) make them uncomfortable and isn't likely to get you laid for that reason.  A pretty minor aside, really.

Shortly thereafter, Dawkins made a reference belittling her comments, and the blogosphere exploded with some of the nastiest, vilest and most disgusting comments about Rebecca along the lines of what I mentioned above - only worse.

She has been followed around the web ever since by some of those dogs ... er ...trolls, and the abuse just doesn't stop.

The worse part of it is that the campaign has spread to include just about any other major atheist figure that dares to speak up about it in support of those being abused.

This weekend was a continuation of that, and to illustrate how bad it is, the woman involved (diagnosed with PTSD as a result of online bullying and harassment) has signed up with a group who is fundraising for the treatment of civilian victims of PTSD, and the harassment has followed her to her fundraising page!

Let me make my position clear.

In any situation where a person finds him/herself stopping on a webpage of any kind and disagreeing with the positions, attitudes or conclusions expressed by the writer of that page/post, it is incumbent upon the commenter to keep the comments he/she makes on point, germane to the issue, and civil.  At no time is it proper (or productive) to engage in an ad hominem attack on the writer based on his/her sex, perceived sexual orientation, race, age, nationality, religious belief, or for that matter, any other personal characteristic that isn't involved in or part of the written subject being commented on.

In particular, it is reprehensible, inhumane, disgusting, improper, anti-social, despicable, heinous, repellent, (ain't thesauruses wonderful?) unacceptable, and just plain mean to use threats, declarations of a person's "needing" to be raped, or any other violently descriptive comment in an effort to harass or bully that person into shutting up.

If you can't successfully argue your point, and the other person has brought your argument to a halt due to a lack of enough evidence to prove your point - you lose.  At this point, go home.  Quit, give up.  You don't have to do it gracefully (although that IS something that shows better character), but you should at least stop at that point.

Continuing on to a personal attack because you cannot bring the discussion to a personally satisfying conclusion is not the way to win an argument.

Beyond that, commenting on a page for the SOLE PURPOSE of harassing, attacking, and bullying is just anti-social behavior that sucks big time.  It is wrong, bad and just plain mean.

It means that you are a troll, and the worst kind at that.

Go away.

To the rest of you out there who are not such trolls, don't look away.  Don't shudder at the profanity and click on by.  Stop, read and comment, even if it is only to tell the trolls to shut up.  The more of us do that, the fewer trolls will exhibit this behavior.  They do it because it is rewarding, and it is rewarding because they are encouraged by others who either join in or encourage it by REPOSTING comment threads containing that kind of harassment!

Let's all work together to help make as many online places as we can unfriendly to harassment and bullying.  Call it out!  Make them see that it is a disgusting and disliked behavior.

Then, maybe we can all have a better online experience.   Plus, the trolls won't be making the rest of the atheist movement look like a bunch of hypocrites.  If we are going to criticize religions for misogynistic attitudes and practices, we should not tolerate such behavior among those we call allies.

...and I don't!

We are better than this.

Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps died the other day.

Since the word he was near death came out a few days before that, numerous posts on Facebook were published, some excoriating him, and others taking a more measured approach.  I saw one taking a very reasonable approach, refusing to say anything bad about him, and merely expressing sympathy for his family.

Needless to say, the comments were mixed, but largely tilted towards expressing a real hatred for the man.  Some bordered on the truly extreme end of the spectrum, even going so far as to use some very regrettable language.  There were a few echoing the more reasonable approach, though.

Come on, folks, aren't we better than that?  We are supposed to be skeptical, reasonable, and open to a better moral compass, informed by that which is better for the larger social group.  Hatred, people, is not better for the welfare of the larger social group.  It is corrosive and lowers the level of discourse, and truly puts us on the same level with the hatred the man founded and expressed publicly.

Is that how we wish to be seen?  Really?

Yes, eventually, his hatred came back and bit him on the ass, as he got tossed out by his own people, ironically, for trying to dial back the enthusiasm his own followers brought to his teachings!  There is, I think, a lesson there for anybody who tries to use hatred and the darker side of human emotions for building an empire.

But is that a reason for us to lower ourselves to his level?  I would argue not.  Our own problem in becoming more accepted by the general American population is to rebrand ourselves from the unfortunate nastiness formerly stuck to us by Christian churches in the past.

That will not be helped by images of atheists expressing hatred for people like him in the same terms (or worse) than Phelps himself used against his self-assigned enemies.  That, my friends, is counter-productive, as it perfectly illustrates us as exactly what theists have tried to paint us as in the past.

We really don't want to reinforce that image.

Much better is an expression of sympathy for his surviving family, no matter what they personally may think of him.  

Let history be the real judge.

If Humans Aren't Unique.

There is a growing body of evidence to the affect that there are other species of mammal on this earth who may exhibit similar levels of intelligence to humans.  In fact, there are some biologists who investigate life which survives in extreme environments now advancing the thought that intelligence may not always exhibit the same characteristics as ours - that we may not recognize a similarly intelligent species when we see one simply because we won't be able to communicate with it.

Humans have this peculiar trait - we seem to only think someone is as smart as we are if we can talk to them.  Witness someone talking to a foreigner whose voice gets louder and louder as they try to make themselves understood - as if sheer volume helps.  And that's trying to talk to another human!

So, imagine how much harder it is for us to understand that another species is as smart as us if the methods of communication for us and the other species are not compatible - we use sound waves vs. another species using body movement or skin color.

They probably think we are as stupid as we think they are!

Fascinating subject - there is good evidence that dolphins, various species of hominids, elephants, some birds and even whales may also be as intelligent as humans.  We just all have quite different methods of communicating.

This, of course, blows the religious attitude that humans are special - that only humans have souls that are capable of surviving into an afterlife - right outta the water.  What is there to say, if those other species really are as smart as we are, that we are so special that only we can go to heaven?

That others are intelligent as well tells us that no, humans are not the top of the intelligence pyramid, no we are not special, and are, in fact, as the environmentalists have been telling us for decades, just a  small part of an ecology we are rapidly stripping of its ability to keep us alive.

To me, this is a double whammy perfectly illustrating the terrible harm that comes from vast numbers of people believing in superstition.

On one side, the religious belief that we are special and god made this world for us because we are made "in his image" harms us because people will do anything to go to this special place we call heaven.  They see the world through god-colored glasses to justify hurting others to prevent those others from jeopardizing their own chances of going to heaven.

The other side of that whammy is that they see the world as being ours to rape and pillage of everything of value, because not only did god give us "dominion" over the world, but that one day, he'll just come back and fix whatever we screwed up.

Both are short-sighted, both are harmful in numerous ways, and both are blown completely away by the knowledge that we are not the only intelligent species on this planet.

Because, if we are not so special, and there are others as smart as we are, that means that our traditional place at the top is wrong, unethical, and morally bankrupt.  It means that we must, at the very least, take the welfare of all those other intelligent species into account as we use the resources this planet gives us.

At most, it means that we must take the welfare of ALL life on this planet into account.

Which means that we are in for a major re-assessment of how we must live as a species, on this planet and among our fellow travelers on this beautiful blue-green ball we call home.  I've never thought of myself as an environmentalist.  But, I AM a rationalist, and one of my prime directives is that my world-view must change as new information comes to light.

Maybe being an environmentalist isn't such a bad thing to be after all.

Are the moral standards of America declining?

A popular complaint of Christians (and thus a standard dig at atheists) is that the moral standards of the US are declining.  Some blame it on gays, some on women's "libido", others use various other specific complaints, but since all of them are essentially Progressive Faults, many just lump it all together by blaming it all on us atheists.

The problem is, when the specific items are examined closely, often the worst places in the US end up being States and localities with heavily Christian influence.

Divorce, teen pregnancy, domestic violence, murder, assault, theft, all have a generally higher level of incidence in very religious areas of the country.

Internationally, countries (especially in Europe) with very low rates of religiosity also have very low rates of these same social problems.

Of course, without specific studies showing causality, one does need to be a bit careful about pointing fingers, so lets look at this from another viewpoint.

I think that the whole morality issue is a matter of definition.  It isn't that morals are "declining", but that the population of the US is simply changing the way we look at morality and ethics.

Cultures, as a general rule, go by sets of rules.  Those rules may be legal, they may be cultural, they may be religious.  Many of those differing categories probably meld back and forth - a religious rule may be enshrined in law, or a cultural taboo may be absorbed by religious leaders, or vice versa.  It is often hard to separate the different kinds of rules.

There is little doubt, however, that those rules often change over time.  Examples abound - here in the US, it used to be a hidebound rule that blacks were inferior to whites, and that status was exhibited in myriads of ways - riding in the back of the bus, separate drinking fountains or public restrooms, etc.

Today, such discriminatory measures are not only illegal, but are actively frowned on in much of the country as anachronisms.  Used to be, inter-racial marriages of any kind were illegal.  No more.  At one time, divorce was not only frowned upon, but was impossible to obtain in most parts of the country.  As recently as the late fifties or early sixties, an unmarried couple could not stay in the same hotel room except in certain "low rent"parts of town.  Large chain hotels/motels would not allow it.

All of those things now are not only legal, but are looked at as quaint reminders of the way things used to be, and most people don't even miss them at all.

An important recent example of this is the rapidly changing national attitude about gays and marriage.  As recently as just ten years ago, in many parts of the country (and even a few today), one could not reveal oneself as gay without severe repercussions.  The attitude of most Americans has reversed itself, and now a minority feel being gay is wrong and support the old negative stereotype.

Today, over 13 States have legalized gay marriage, standardizing what is rapidly becoming known as marriage equality.  There are numerous legal challenges to many States' bans on gays marrying, and there are indications that others may be following the early lead of that first thirteen.

Interesting how that number 13 crops up occasionally, isn't it?

It is clear that societies change over time.  Ours is no exception.  We no longer allow slavery, or indentured servitude.  We no longer throw people into prison for indebtedness (or at least not in a widespread way - a couple of States have re-instituted it in a weird modern way, but not like it used to be)

To many Americans, the new moralities are better.

Women are no longer forced to stay in violent, unwanted marriages, and can today actually be the party filing for divorce.  They can own property under their own names, hold jobs, start a company and be the boss, they can vote.

Minorities are no longer relegated to second class status, at least not legally, except in the way the justice system operates.  Yeah, we still need to work on that.

There may be a lot of Evangelical Christians who feel strongly that American morals have "slipped". That's fine, I have no problem with folks who have the ability to maintain their beliefs in the face of immense public pressure.  There is much about that to admire.

Until those old beliefs become harmful, especially to the innocent.  Or until they begin to try to make the rest of us adhere to their old belief system.  Then, there's a problem.

Message to the Conservatives that are trying to make this country stand still:

Go home.  Go to Church.  But leave the rest of us alone.  We don't buy into your bullshit.  We don't want your belief system enshrined in law, or taught in our schools, or enforced at work.  We have our own morals, our own ethics.  If you promise to keep your moral/religious practices to yourself, we promise to do the same.  Keep your religious crap outta our schools, and we promise not to teach Secular Humanism in school either.

This country has survived for over 238 years by being tolerant of others' belief systems, I think it is perfectly capable of doing that many more by maintaining that tolerant posture.

Deal?

Saints preserve me, I think I'm beginning to agree with the Pope!

In a recent blog post, "Popes come, Popes go", I cautioned against believing too much in the newly minted Pope's statements about how the church should pay more attention to how it cares for the poor, noting that I believe he is trying very hard to bring the flock back into the fold, so to speak.

I still stand by that post.  No matter how much sense this new guy makes in his public statements, he is still the head of the oldest and most conservative bureaucracy in the world.  He is still the monarch of one of the oldest surviving monarchies, and most definitely the only one with anywhere near absolute authority.  At least in theory.

But dang it, his statements sound so good!

The cyberwife and I were talking today about some of the recent posts we've seen on Facebook about right wing political statements we've seen, discriminatory laws we've seen getting either passed or proposed, the terrible time many people are having just staying above water on the bills, and juxtaposing all that with our own circumstances and my eventual retirement in a few years.

We are very lucky.  Lucky to be born white.  Lucky to be born in First World countries where we were able to get good educations, and have been able to help our children get well on their way to being productive adults as lucky as us.  Fortunate to have an income better than most Americans (though not wealthy, and burdened with more debt than we should).

And as a Fed, destined to have a decent retirement after over 40 years in service.  (So, don't think I didn't EARN it!)

But darn it, so damn many people who have worked just as hard as I, or harder, don't have either a decent income or are unable to look forward to any retirement, much less a good one.  Or even a half-assed one, for that matter.

We live in a house that we bought a couple of decades ago when we had three teenagers, and really needed the space.  Now, with them gone, we rattle around this house like two quarters in a can.  The technology we use to heat and cool this space ensures that we must heat/cool the entire space, regardless of how much we use.

That's not all.

In looking at our entire livelihood and lifestyle, it is plain that living in this capitalist country, in order to protect ourselves, provide for our own welfare and look out for our future, we must live in a way that is, essentially, selfish.

We live in a house that is too big.
We use too much energy to heat/cool it.
We tend to buy/consume too much food.
We use a transportation system that costs too much and uses too much fuel.

In order to protect our lifestyle, we cannot bring in strangers in frigid weather who need a warm place to sleep, because that would place our lives in danger.  The amount of money we can afford to donate to causes that help such people is, really, not nearly enough.

Why?  Because as the Pope says, we live in a country under a capitalistic system that cares only for the almighty dollar.  People do not count.  Wasted resources do not count.  There is no effective way to force this system to change in time to keep more people from dying in poverty.

We are, in short, trapped.  Like most Americans.  Trapped in a system that doesn't care about us, doesn't care about the poor or the unfortunate, or the sick or the mentally ill.  A system where only money talks.

It forces me to live in guilt, feeling that I am using too much energy and other resources (which I am), but also knowing that if I don't, I run the chance of losing all that and ending up in poverty.

And I hate that.  I want to live in a society that cares for the less fortunate.  One that provides good, solid and low cost health care for all its citizens.  One that provides a good roof overhead and three squares a day for everybody.   Someplace that will pick me up if I stumble, and gives me a way to pick up my neighbor if he/she stumbles instead without jeopardizing my livelihood or my safety.

One that doesn't tell people who need help that they don't deserve it.  A society which allows people their personal freedom to determine their own future, without coercion, without shaming, without making them feel like second class citizens.

Is that too much to ask?  Is it?

Customer Service Par Excellence!

I have a fantastic story of customer service, folks.

Every year about this time, we order gifts for our grandkids (as do millions of other grandparents). What we have chosen to do is give gifts from online companies offering toys and such for kids with a scientific or educational theme. Brain teasers, science kits, puzzles, etc., all age specific.

The company we have settled on is one called Mindware.

This year, we ordered as usual, and one of the items we ordered had two separate boxes, one for patterns, and one for pictures. A magnetic mosaic kind of thing. The online catalog had three different order numbers, with one being for both boxes. We got that one.

But when the order came today, someone had mistakenly put two of the same type into the shipping box, meaning we didn't have the second one, for patterns.

So, we called their customer service to correct the error, expecting to get a return authorization and shipping label to return the wrong box.

Nope, didn't happen. Instead, as she set up the order to have the correct item shipped to us in just three days, she told us to DONATE the mis-shipped item!

Yes, you got that right, they are allowing us to keep the item that was sent by mistake, on the proviso that we donate it to a charity that will give it to a needy child for Christmas!

We have decided to donate it to Toys for Tots, run by the US Marines, which is being collected at my office this year.  (Every year, in fact)

THANK YOU, MINDWARE!!!

I am SO impressed by this company, I want all of you to share this story, because for a company to actually push donation as a solution to this kind of error is unheard of, and I think a wonderful solution it is!

Educational toys, learning toys for kids & children | MindWare Toys

www.mindware.com

MindWare is proud to be the best resource for educational toys, toys for education and learning toys for kids and children that engage and entertain. Your children will learn 

More evidence of harm by religion.

Well, we're back at sniping at the Catholic Church.

A theme of mine has always been how religion (ANY religion) can be harmful to humanity.  That the very precepts that make it what it is are so easily manipulated into something that supports violence, bigotry, patriarchy and other evils that it should be seen by humanity as inherently harmful and chucked into the waste bins of history.

Yes, I understand how those same precepts are often used for good, and that there are millions of people who do good obeying those same ideals.

The problem is, when people, individually, obey those ideals and do good, they are doing it one person at a  time.  When church officials and politicians use them to justify evil, that evil affects often millions of people at once.

Case in point.

Remember the hurricane in the Philippines a while back?  Remember how that monster was the biggest, well, typhoon (not hurricane, that is in the Pacific) to hit land with the highest wind speeds EVER?

The destruction, as you might imagine, was equally historic in scope.  Countries around the world have been sending assistance and money to help.

So, what does the Roman Catholic Church, the oldest, richest most influential church in the world do to help?  Does it send money?  Food?  Medical supplies?  Remember, the Philippines is a big follower of the Catholic Church!

No.  It sends rosaries.  And bibles.  So, when the Pope twitters to his followers that they need to help too, what does he advise?  Sending money or food?  No, he suggests prayer.

He could have suggested prayer AS WELL AS sending money or food.  But, I guess that would have taken up valuable shipping space that might have been used for his rosaries and bibles instead, huh?

Or maybe would have sent his tweet over the character limit, so they had to leave that part out...

See what I mean?  Instead of sending real assistance that survivors of a natural disaster really need to continue being survivors, they send useless crap, and let their followers do a simple prayer instead of money, letting them think that by doing the Pope's bidding, they've done something to help!

Instead of using valuable shipping space for valuable survival supplies instead of useless crap or sending money, which is the most valuable assistance ever.

Thus preventing real assistance from getting to where it needs to be sooner.

Folks, this is real harm.  This is not helping, even if you think prayer does some good.  But prayer doesn't increase shipping cubage.  It doesn't buy food, or medicine or temporary shelter.  It doesn't bring in doctors and the medical facilities that allow them to do their jobs.

It merely lets people thousands of miles away essentially talk to themselves, thinking they'e done some good.  Instead of nothing substantial.

Harm, pure and simple.  An excellent example.

Thanks for listening.

Let's Talk Racism.

First, a caveat:  I am a white, Anglo-Saxon male, although I am not religious, so I guess the WASP thing is out.  But I say this to state unequivocally that I am well aware that I am not experienced in being on the receiving end of racial bigotry.  So, I am not trying to tell anyone that I know the true state of racism from the standpoint or perspective of a minority who does.

Ok?  Good.

I do think that I've got a pretty fair idea of how racism works, though, because I grew up in Texas in the 1950s and 60s, and am VERY familiar with how whites in the South view blacks and hispanics.  So, while I can't exactly talk about the receiving end, I CAN talk about the folks that dish it out.  Been there, actually did that at one time.

And am very ashamed of myself for it.

After having lived in Maryland for the last 26 years, my experience has been enough to turn my views on people of ethnic backgrounds other than whites completely around.  I have worked alongside them, lived next door to them, shopped among them, stood in line at the bank behind and in front of them, sat at the DMV next to them while we all waited the same exorbitantly long periods of time for our driver's licenses and paid the same high fees for the same pieces of plastic.  Long enough to be uncomfortable using the word "them" in the last sentence, wishing there was a better way to express it without using a word that sets us apart.

I've witnessed young people grow up alongside each other from a very young age who were surprised and shocked to learn that their friends were somehow different - in a way they'd never even imagined.  So I know that racism is taught, and somehow, growing up as human beings without the divisions of skin color is natural and can be perfectly normal.

So, what is all this about?

How I view modern racism as having changed, morphing into something that is very different - but no less nasty, perverted and bigoted, while being totally ignored.  In spite of being so in your face, you have to be blind not to see it.

You see, whites eventually noted that the blatant, ugly racism of the 50s was pretty bad.  Stressful, if you will.  It gave us a bad name, and for many, made us feel a bit dirty.  So, we went along with the program and did away with the personal racism, at least in person and face to face.  We passed laws that made the blatant personal racism much harder to pursue and in many cases, illegal.  In short, we made "some" progress.  Federal programs of one kind or another made things seem to be just humming along, equalizing the numbers a bit.

At least, that's what the media would have you believe.

But, if I am to believe the minorities I've known, under the surface, it is still there.  A thousand little ways, it is still there.

But, the really BIG ways are even worse.  I am talking about the institutional racism, the built-in racism that pervades the justice system even worse than it used to.  The institutional racism that pervades the media, the Corporate world and even worse, the voting system.

A very interesting article the other day noted that in the District of Columbia, they graduate over 2800 high school students a year.

They also arrest twice that number for minor drug possession!  Over 80% of that number are black.  It is well documented that drug use across racial lines is about equal, so there are a lot of whites not being arrested.  The incarceration levels between the races are equally (!!!) bad.

Note too, the efforts in State after State to limit the ability of minorities to vote.  While in the Corporate world, hiring practices have made the raw numbers of minorities look better, as one get higher in the pay grades, the numbers of minorities (including women) get lower and lower.

In education, schools in minority black areas still don't get the public funding that those in white areas do, although in some States, there have been efforts to level the playing field.

Look at the Trayvon Martin case.  A teenager gets killed, walking unarmed, by a man who is carrying a gun (against the rules of the Watch group he is "working for") and who gets blamed for his death?   He does, not the adult who pulled the trigger after ignoring the directions of 911 authorities to stay in his car.  In case after case, blacks get the shaft, in State after State, the percentages of blacks is higher in raw numbers of those incarcerated, of those serving longer sentences and of those on death row.

In at least one State, the Governor did recognize this as an issue and used it as an excuse to suspend the death penalty pending corrective measures.  We'll see how long it takes for those "corrective measures" to be made!  I suspect that the reasons for the suspension are less over racial disparity in sentencing than on simple opposition to the death penalty.  In the meantime, a higher number of blacks in that State now are in prison for life, lengthening the average length of sentences for blacks in that State.

My point is that in spite of our efforts to reduce racism and the apparent successes we have made in many areas, much of those efforts have done little but direct the expression of that bigotry into other areas, many of which are difficult to legislate away.

Take the justice system, for instance.  All along the chain of officials from the cop on the beat to the supervising officers and the Public Prosecutor's Office, we have people fulfilling functions that to most of us are esoteric, enforcing laws according to rules that have become so complicated that it is impossible to legislate any kind of equality between races.  Each position is responsible for making decisions about cases where they must take into account individual situations, circumstances and differing laws where they can, even must, use their individual discretion and experience in making those decisions.  Discretion which allows them to express their individual racism without blame, without oversight, allowing them to blame it on "the system".

This attitude is pervasive throughout American life, and all public institutions, whether private or governmental.

Unless you are white, you are behind the eight ball from the git-go, as we say down South.

Well, I've got news for all you folks out there who are instrumental in supporting these racist attitudes and institutions:

By the 2050's, you won't be part of the majority any longer.  Whites will be just one of many minority groups, and there just won't be a "majority" race.  Are you willing to bet on how long it will take a coalition of other ethnic groups to end your segregationist ways?  Or whether they will decide to treat you better or worse than you have treated them?

This country has a long way to go before we meet the Supreme Court's rather cavalier proclamation that racism is over.

One more thing the US is behind on.

I have been a science fiction fan since I was twelve and I picked up a copy of Robert Heinlein's book, "Have Space Suit, Will Travel".  These days, I waffle between sci-fi and fantasy, but sci-fi was my first love.

A recurring theme in sci-fi is the issue of non-human intelligence.  Robert Heinlein had at least one book, which I can't remember the name of, that dealt with this issue head on, using the literary tool of a trial to show how the legal system might handle the idea of a chimpanzee having enhanced intelligence equal to a human.

Enter the humble dolphin.  People have been fascinated with these beautiful creatures for centuries, and we interact with them constantly along America's coastlines.  Stories abound where they have saved lives, made friends and interact with humans in very intelligent yet somewhat alien way.

It is that alienness that keeps them from being recognized as fully sentient.  Science has shown a very high level of intelligence in them, and some even say they are one of only a couple of species other than humans who recognize themselves in a mirror - a critical test of intelligence.

Yet, we still hesitate to declare them fully sentient - is it because of the profits gained by the big aquariums which draw huge crowds and millions of dollars in profits by using captive dolphins to attract the crowds?  They ARE popular!

Well, chalk up one more way the US is behind the international community in a rather new field:  sentient rights.

Yes, you heard it right, sentient rights.  NOT human rights, but sentient rights!  Defined as the rights of sentient beings of whatever species based on their individual rights as sentient, thinking and aware beings.

We humans have an atrocious record of violating the individual rights of other species, based on our perceived place at the top of the food chain.  Actually, it is based on, in the West for sure, our religious beliefs that we were given, by god, dominion over the other animals.  Dominion is an interesting word, and given the modern umbrella group that called itself Dominionists, it has traditionally meant, in English, that one who has dominion, has control over and can rule over, those over whom he has been given dominion.  It confers god-given rights, powers of life and death, in particular.

It seems that India has passed a law banning "any person / persons, organizations, government agencies, private or public enterprises that involves import, capture of cetacean species to establish for commercial entertainment, private or public exhibition and interaction purposes whatsoever.”

Costa Rica, Hungary, and Chile are the other three countries that also ban that captivity, and it is interesting to note that while only one of those is in Europe, all of them but India are or used to be heavily Catholic countries.  India, of course, isn't, and has a heavily buddhist influence, which at least makes some sense.

So much for Dominionism, at least over animals.  Now all we have to do is prevent them from establishing their "dominion" over Americans.

But, hooray for India, and a BIG high five!

Ethics - Is it really that complex?

I did, way back in the day, graduate from college.  I got a bachelor's degree in Public Administration from the University of Texas at Dallas.

What that degree course of study did NOT include was one on ethics.  It is a lack I have always felt was a mistake.  It also did not include anything on philosophy.

So, please understand that I am approaching this entirely on my own, from my own lifetime's experience.

Ethics, to me is the study of how people should act in their relationships with other people.  Being ethical is following the rules our society generally sees as the "right" thing to do.  Now, there is of course, a lot of discussion, argument and downright shouting at times over what is "ethical", and there are a lot of wannabe lawyers who will be happy to tell you the difference between ethics and what is legal.

Webster says ethics is:

the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation

 Webster says morality is:

1
a : a moral discourse, statement, or lesson
b : a literary or other imaginative work teaching a moral lesson 

2
a : a doctrine or system of moral conduct
b plural : particular moral principles or rules of conduct 

3  : conformity to ideals of right human conduct

So, it seems that ethics and morality are inextricably mixed up with one another, and pretty much seem to be talking abut the same thing.

Human conduct, especially regarding how that conduct affects others, is at the heart of ethics and morality.

Now, our Christian neighbors will tell you that their morality is informed by the Bible.  I think we've talked about that before, and I have written before (but not on this blog) on how the Ten Commandments are a poor fit for what Americans see as moral and right - at least what I grew up with in the great State of Texas.

I did write a post about how biblical morals aren't American morals, and it is clear that they aren't.  You've just got to discard too many biblical verses in order for that to be true - I mean we actually fought a war over slavery, and most of us still see slavery as bad.  Americans are wedded to our mixed fabrics, eat who knows how many multiple tons of shellfish a year and make absolutely no distinction over whether our meaty animal donors have a split hoof or not.  I assume most Americans see genocide (including bashing babies) as an immoral act.  I certainly do.

So, if morals and ethics don't come from a holy book, where do they come from?

Us.

Morality and ethics is an inherently human thing.  I suppose one could argue that dolphins and elephants show moral behavior, and perhaps some species of hominids have their own version too, but the data from the examination of those species is pretty thin.

So, let's just go with the human aspect of it for now.

Humanity has been around in one form or another for several million years, although our current form, as Homo Sapiens Sapiens is probably from around 200,000 years or so ago.  For some reason, around 50,000 years ago, we began exhibiting more modern behavior, including cooking with fire and so forth, although there is now more evidence that we did use tools much earlier than that.

But for our current purposes, let's say that the human species has had at least 50,000 years of experience at building ourselves a civilization.  In geologic terms, heck, even in anthropological terms, that isn't much.  A lot of that time was spent hunting and gathering for a living, and it apparently took us quite some time before we discovered that cooperation was the key to not only surviving, but in getting ahead in the civilization game.  Slowly, over the intervening years, humans have discovered that group cooperation, including taking care of the elderly, the infirm and the unfortunate works even better as the groups get bigger.

Of course, a lot of other behaviors, including sexual, marital, professional, business and political, have become better and better defined, and we have found a lot of behavior that is best left out of our list of what is acceptable.

But religion has crept in and muddied the waters.  Too many people like to claim that our morals and ethics are defined by a revealed set of morals - morals revealed to us by some invisible deity.  Of course once we actually take a close look at those "morals", we find that most of them have to do with either allowable behaviors regarding the "in crowd" - the tribal group - or with proper religious behaviors, i.e., going to church on Sunday, not worshiping competing gods, etc.  Very few of the "revealed" proper behaviors are anything actually new, and most of the non-religious ones are values already known and enforced by previous societies.

The overriding value one sees as being seen as bad is the idea that one can hurt a member of the in group.  Overall, humans see the idea of not hurting one's friends and neighbors as being a behavior that is to be encouraged.  A lot of more complex behaviors can be extrapolated from that one idea, activities that cover the entire range of human activities.

This is the basis of my assertion that one can be good without a deity.  Good without god, if you will.  Examine the teachings of Jesus, throwing out the obviously religiously flavored ones, and the over riding principle one sees is this one - the thought that one should not hurt others, and indeed, should help them whenever and wherever you can.  It isn't unique with Christianity, however, and was part of several of the "mystery" religions in the Mediterranean area before the first century.  It is the heart of human "in" group behavior.

The thrust of our modern ideals of morality and ethics then, is convincing people to accept a wider and wider ideal of who, exactly, is or should be seen as being part of the "in" group.  It used to be family, then clan, or groups of families loosely related, then tribal and finally national.

Our modern era is now struggling with the idea that nationalism is the modern ultimate in divisiveness. At the same time, we are also struggling with the even more modern idea of dropping religion, which many see as even more divisive than nationalism.

Both nationalism and religion are about control.  Just about any governmental system is about control, and the further back one goes in history, the more controlling and divisive government is seen to be.  But today, if we can hold on to the ideals of democracy we started this country with, I think we can continue our experiment with the most free and the least controlling system man has invented.

But first, we need to drop the ideals of religion.  That is the most controlling of all, as it invades the mind and alters one's very view of reality.

It also twists one's view of morality and ethics.

Twisted ethics and morality are the bane of man's existence.  Let's get back on track.