Beware, you’re about to read my opinions about lots of different things. If you’re not comfortable reading about things you might not agree with, I would encourage you not to read on any further. If, however, you agree or disagree and have something thoughtful to add, your feedback is HUGELY appreciated. What I’m trying to do is start a conversation… get us talking about the things we’re not supposed to talk about. With that, carry on.
So, did you hear about the family whose 11 year old child died from diabetes because they preferred to not seek treatment?
The courts are trying to figure out if/how they’ll press charges for child abuse.
It’s sad… and I don’t want to come across as though I’m heartless… but somehow I’m not sure that they should necessarily be charged. Yes, indeed, I believe it’s neglect. But is our government responsible for ensuring the survival of children? I pose this question because I’m in the business that saves children. I pose this question because I believe that we should listen to the children and that we as adults are responsible for protecting our children…
At the same time, I am not entirely certain that it’s the government’s place to enforce this.
I believe in survival of the fittest, and frankly this family obviously isn’t the fittest.
I believe that we don’t have the right to abuse/murder or neglect our children, but that it should be of our own accord, not because we are afraid of what guidelines some legislatures box us in with.
It’s not the same, but it’s somehow related to abortion. I DO believe that abortion is “murder” in many ways– because there is a potential human life within us. I believe it’s justifiable “murder” because what we do as adults– and what we decide as adults– should be contained within a category of adult decisions and that we should take FULL responsibility for our choices. I don’t think it’s the government’s place to dictate that.
I believe in capital punishment, though. I believe that those choices should have the repercussions of a death sentence, and I think that if the conviction is made beyond a doubt– preferably with DNA evidence of an atrocious crime, that the consequences should be a non-negotiable, non-appealable death sentence. I believe that the non-rehabilitatable people should fall in this category, and should not sit around for years waiting for someone to finally say, “Okay, we’re done arguing, be done with you.” Specifically, I believe this should encompass all sexually violent predators, especially those who hurt children.
So what’s the difference between someone who neglects to provide health care for their ailing child and someone who is a pedophile? I believe much of it is intention. This is where it becomes a slippery slope.
A pedophile, by definition, “loves children.” In “loving children,” they also are sexually aroused by children. They know it’s wrong– because they hide it from our government. In their minds, the only reason it could possibly be construed as WRONG is because the government tells them it is WRONG.
Someone who neglects to get health care for their child for spiritual reasons has faith. Of course, a completely different family could present the same behavior (failing to provide health care) because they are evil and abusive. It would take a very wise person to decipher the difference in intentions.
That being said, don’t you think it is our responsibility to put in place those wise people to determine the criminals’ intentions? This would work wonderfully if we actually had this power. Which leads us to the problem of our citizens not voting. I would guess that the #1 reason why people don’t vote is because they don’t feel that their vote counts. (Followed by the #2 reason that they don’t like the candidates they have to vote for–another problem all together.) Before the last presidential election, I would have vehemently argued that your vote not counting was a falsehood instilled by those up high who don’t want you to believe that your vote counts… Fewer votes means fewer people standing up for who they want elected. However, much of my faith in the system was lost when I realized that, “OH! My vote doesn’t really count!” when Bush was elected– though though through a majority vote. That right there was the beginning in the downward spiral of my faith in our system.
This leads me to my blind eye phenomenon. I know damn well that I am not the only one turning a blind eye– in fact, giving most of us a benefit of the doubt as being thoughtful, mindful, thinking human beings, I believe that I must be within a majority of people who “sees” what is wrong with our system yet chooses to do nothing because we lead “happy” and more importantly FREE lives.
So, back to the broken justice system. Is there anyone besides me who recognizes just how horribly lame and injured our system is? It revolves around money, and it isn’t fair. Life’s not fair, and I’m one who will typically embrace working with what we’ve got (and following the rules simply because that’s my responsibility as a citizen), and disregarding the flagrant unfair treatment that you’ll receive based upon your socioeconomic or ethnic status. It sucks. We have such a huge nation with so many different judges and laws and individual decision-makers who are inconsistent and other further the inadequate justice system. We have half of our people believing that the government should regulate EVERYTHING and another group who thinks they should regulate nothing, and another group who thinks they should selectively regulate, etc… We’re inconsistent. We believe for some reason that how we’ve always done it MUST be how it works (or doesn’t work), and short of a revolution, there’s not a lot we can do. (Enter blind eye phenomenon again…)
Anyway… much of what I’ve presented here doesn’t have a simple answer– and most of you who read it certainly won’t want to actually DO anything about it (hell, I’m not sure *I* want to do anything about it). I just wanted to point out some examples of why and how what we’re doing here ISN’T working, and I’m still working on a solid solution myself. I know, I know, I especially dislike throwing out complaints with no solutions– it’s more bitching than problem solving… but in this post I suppose you have to start out by identifying the problems before you can work through what the solutions are. I’m such a woman. *wink*
35 Responses to “Slippery slopes and wickedly woven webs.”
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March 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The phrase “Sad but true” comes to mind.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Indeed. Blind eye???
March 28th, 2008 at 11:57 am
My main question is that who else protects the rights of the child? We as parents are responsible for our children as they grow up but we do not own them as posessions to do with what we want. I am speaking primarily of children who have been born, ask me another time about my feelings on abortion, who have personalities and dreams and potential. I would put the diabetes neglect right up there with food. Faith is one thing, but to believe that God or a god will fill your kids bellies with no outside influence is ridiculous. Starving a child, rather ANYONE, intentionally should be considered criminal. Therefore, witholding treatment should also be criminal.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for your reply, Sunshine! (hey, that’s MY nickname!)
So… for devil’s advocate purposes… What if it was OUR responsibility as fellow human beings to protect the children? What if, instead of there being laws against it, we all took full responsibility as people to protect these children. Yes, more people would be involved in everyone else’s business. We would have to stand up for what we believe is appropriate– for instance, the guilt may fall in the people besides the parents who knew this child was sick. It would become a community concern, rather than a legislative concern. Of course, we couldn’t go right in and “rescue” the child, but could put social pressure on the parents to do what is appropriate. Neighbors, family members, family friends… THOSE are the people (perhaps) that could have said, you know, we’re going to call a doctor and have them drop by and visit you. And you, as parents, are going to allow it because we’re all watching you starve this child from her ability to be well…
What then?
March 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Ah, but that’s not what we have. What we have is an imperfect system that occassionally makes good decisions for children but is simply so overloaded that it can’t be there for all of them. How then can we try to prevent other cases like this? By charging the parents. If we do nothing, then the people/parents who are really evil and nasty are better able to get away with their evilness.
Now, I believe also that it IS my responsibility as a human being to protect children. Inside my communities for example (church, relatives) I am one of those people who sees children as the responsibility of everyone in the community. For love, mentoring, fun and discipline. This, obviously, is not a perfect situation either, but is better than the alternative.
On a worldwide level, if you’ve not heard of the “Invisible Children” movie and movement, you should check it out at www.invisiblechildren.com. It happens to be an organization that I’m passionate about.
March 28th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Bravo, Sunshine!
Indeed, this is the conversation I was wanting to instigate.
Do you think that charging the evil parents/people is working, though?
I recognize the paradox in that question. On one hand, we have to do the best we can with what we’ve got… but what if what we have currently isn’t the best we can do?
If we all put our minds to it, I think we could come up with better solutions– ones that actually WORK.
Brainstorm with me?
March 29th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
In your example POHA, of the 11 year old child, if the child had expressed a desire to receive treatment would that over-ride the parents wishes to deny that treatment? On which side then must the law take?
March 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Well… What if it wasn’t up to the law? I would think that if the child had wanted treatment, and had expressed this to her parents, if it wasn’t up to the government who did not know her– but a moral responsibility for the parents to respect their child’s wishes to survive…. I don’t know! It IS after all a slippery slope. What are YOUR thoughts?
March 30th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Well, apparently it is up to the law, otherwise the doctors would have consulted with the child when the parents refused. Children that age, or younger, are called upon as witnesses at trials so there is precedence that, although still minors, they are competent under the law. Maybe the laws should be changed to allow childeren to live long enough to choose a religion?
March 30th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Indeed, this is my point. I’m trying to pose the question that perhaps this SHOULDN’T be something the law determines as to what is the appropriate behaviors. Perhaps it shouldn’t be lawfully enforced at all. Maybe we would have more pleasing results if instead it were the responsibility of the community to protect our children.
I suppose it would, in theory, be appropriate to allow a child to grow up long enough to choose their own faith– and then if, upon choosing, they determined that there was just one basket to place their spiritual eggs into, then we could allow them to live as they wish– or die, as in this case.
However, what if the family of said children “brainwashed” them into following the only religion that would save them? Obviously this rings too close to reality as we see it anyway.
I suppose what I was getting at with this post was that maybe we shouldn’t have these laws (which don’t appear to be working anyway), and perhaps take responsibility for our own community… Perhaps it really DOES take a village to raise a child. Perhaps it takes a village to protect its people– as I’m seeing it now, it doesn’t take a large government with mandates and legislatures, because what’s happening NOW isn’t working.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
So, in response to the question you posted to me earlier - Do I think that charging the parents is working? To some degree yes. I am sure there are people out there who are threatened enough by prison to avoid committing an act that might land them there. Even if it was in their tendency to commit that act. Does it work well - no.
I do believe that the “village” mentality of parenting is one of the best options we’ve got. All people have strengths and weaknesses, and when we complement anothers weakness with our strength, we end up stronger than before. The problem with it is that in the US especially we foster an attitude of personal independence. We are terrified to ask for help and even more terrified to then allow them to help us. I am active in an incredibly accepting and loving community and I still have trouble asking for help. Even though I’ve been shown that it is ok and even expected.
This is a really good topic, by the way
March 31st, 2008 at 4:21 am
It is the responsibility of the community POHA to protect children, and all individuals within the group; but, the greater responsibility is to protect the community. By a legal and political system we transfer individual and community responsibility (rights) up the ladder to a larger community, ie: cities, counties, states, countries. Once you lose those rights it’s hard to get them back. Sunshine is right when she says that “we end up stronger than before”, otherwise how would the “village” ensure that the child receive life giving treatment? By force? You might then have chaos in the community and the village would be torn apart. Better to have a stable community with “allowances” in the laws where individuals have some freedoms. Some people use these freedoms unwisely, as with criminals in general and the parents of the child in particular; but, within this flawed system the community remains intact. I suspect these questions have been pondered since the first wandering Cro-Magnon announced, “We will settle here!”, and now, thanks to you, the critical thinking continues!
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
*grin*
Yay for critical thinking.
Indeed, I see your point, Caoimhin, because _how_ would we enforce it?
Obviously FORCE isn’t the right option.
In my Utopian ideal, we would intrinsically know the difference between right and wrong and be able to work these issues out with ourselves and within our communities. I feel like in our efforts to become “civilized” we’ve removed our own personal responsibility to behave “civilly.” If there is an ethical issue to address, I think that the person making the decision should ultimately have the right to their own decision: specifically when it comes to life or death issues (ie abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, capital punishment, etc). Instead, we have forced mandates that control what is right or wrong, excluding the personal decision from the matter. Life is sometimes NOT the ultimate goal. I realize this may sound horrifying to human rights supporters- and don’t get me wrong, I believe that people should have their right to decide for themselves, not necessarily have the choice made for them. Aside from the capital punishment piece, I’m talking about peoples’ decisions for their OWN life.
This is where the slope becomes slippery– what if we are trying to protect our children? At what point do the parents have the “right” to make life decisions for someone too young to make their own life decision, and at what age is someone mature enough to do so???
If it was a community decision, then I believe that the community, collaboratively, would make the best decision together– and at that point, the perpetrators would also be making a decision– and if that decision was to kill their child (or harm them in any way), then they would in turn be making a decision that ultimately determined their own life status… You see where I’m going with this?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Let me see…do I know where you are going with this? Hmmm….not a clue!
But you have my attention!
Your Utopian society, as you envision it, would probably have to be a closed community with the group members all having nearly the same moral code, wouldn’t it?
Lets say you and I are in charge of this community and the parents of the girl announce that because of their beliefs they have to withhold treatment. The medical facts are clear that without intervention the child dies and the parents will lose the girl forever. The parents know this and say they are ok with it, so we have to believe that they value an “idea” above life.
Since I do not, in this case, think the idea supercedes life, I would suggest to my co-leader, you, that in order to preserve harmony in the community, we allow the parents to have their wish of non-involvement. Since the child will be lost to them in a short time anyway, I suggest we take the child from them now and get her the treatment she needs. The parents can live with their ideals and the child can live with a new set of parents.
Over to you!
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 am
I love this discussion!!!
Okay, so in this community, you and I are somewhat leaders– but only because we enjoy being proactive and people have seen our decision-making history and trust our judgment. This in contrast to our current society where the people who are leaders are the ones with the greatest budget for campaigning. Additionally, there is no “term” for leadership, and in fact, our leadership position depends entirely on decision-making abilities and whether or not the rest of our community continues to have faith in our ability to continue to make good decisions.
So, the community is concerned about the well being of this child. They know her, and they know her family. Because everyone is looking out for each other– “taking a village to raise the children,” we have to address our concerns with the family. We meet (we being the people who are concerned) with the family. We discuss our concerns, but respect the family’s decisions, because the family owns the decision. We can propose other options and negotiate. If it comes right down to it, and the family refuses to comply with what we as a community believes is appropriate, then we acknowledge their decision and then say, “We as a community believe that you have failed this child in her livelihood. We love this child and insist that you allow her to live with a new family who will care for her needs. If you decide that at one point you want to care for her in a way that is best for her livelihood, then we will allow you to take her back into your home.”
This way the child’s biological family understands the community’s expectations for them as parents.
This way the parents continue to have decision making authority.
This way the child has a right to livelihood.
This way any disagreements are litigated not by an elected “judge” but by the community and their faith in their leaders’ decisions. This way a leader is actually kept in check by representing the community’s interests– with the consequences of their decisions determining their leadership position.
I think we could get some really wonderful leaders for our community if we all believed that we were individually represented.
As to war with other communities? Well, I believe that people are generally peaceful. I believe that much violence comes from one leader’s lack of respect for life. I believe that communities would not generally support offensive attacks…
Offensive attacks only spur on more hate from the people who were haters (because why? a sense of disrespect) in the first place.
Slippery slope…
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Not bad…everyone’s ideas are respected. Leadership only comes from a positive action “to do” in this community, another time it may come from a different person with an idea or ideal to defend.
War? That’s a leap! All wars are economic so there must be a shortage of resources between neighbouring communities. Most groups would have had some history of trade or social interaction from inception and would have a basis for negotiation and diplomacy. If this fails and the groups do not want to join together to create one larger community to make better use of the dwindling natural resources, I suggest a mudwrestling match between the opposing groups female champions. The winner decides. You go girl!
April 5th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I figure you have to talk about war, because inevitably it’s the first thing a refutation would be made of. I know, a leap, just thought I’d get a head start on the subject.
I think your mud wrestling idea is perfect.
Mud or jello.
Anyway, I just read something in Daniel Quinn’s “The Story of B,” and it talks about how there’s this concept of Law of Limited Competition. Basically, communities can compete together, but only fairly. So mud wrestling seems to be a fair sort of competition– as long as the winner is not trying to destroy the loser’s community.
Do you really think all wars are economic? What about the crusades in Europe in the 15-17th centuries? Those were more ideological than monetary. … OR WERE THEY?
April 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“bellum omnium contra omnes”
That’s Latin for “the war of all against all”, a phrase coined by Thomas Hobbes in his book “Leviathan” (1651). He was describing the way he thought things would be in the absence of a strong central government. The premise is that, when responsibility is left to smaller and smaller entities (i.e. local communities, families, and individuals), the difference in opinions regarding what is right and wrong multiply exponentially, so over time everyone would be fighting about everything. Similarly, since there’s no larger body at least trying to objectively protect everyone, each entity must protect themselves from anyone else who disagrees with them, wants what they have, or is simply being a belligerent prick for fun.
Were that to continue, the average individual would be spending so much energy protecting themselves from others that even the ones who survived would no longer be productive. Additionally, much of the conflict would consume and destroy wealth and other resources. For both reasons, the overall standard of living would plummet. With everyone competing for less and less resources, the nature of the struggle would shift first from philosophical/ideological to purely economical, then eventually to one of literal survival.
At some point in this process, small groups of individuals (first just families and then larger and larger communities) would band together, protecting each other. Hobbes theorizes that, in order for that process to be successful, each group must form some sort of “social contract”: one that defines a collective sense of right and wrong, what each member of the group is responsible for, etc. Without that contract (which is not to imply it’s necessarily a written document, but it might be), fighting within the group will weaken it to the point that it dissolves into smaller entities again, and the process is forced to repeat itself.
Theoretically, then, the success of each group is determined by the nature of their contract: it would need to provide adequate protection from the group as a whole for all members, while still requiring a sufficient level of personal responsibility from each to allow the cooperation to be worthwhile for all. Anything else would result in portions of the group splitting off from the whole. It would also need to be malleable enough to allow it to evolve as the group grows larger, both by the incorporation of other like-minded groups, and by organic growth from within. Finally, it would need to provide protection in a way that shields its members from unprovoked external attacks without actually provoking external attacks… but also protects members from each other - again, to prevent portions of the group from deciding they’re better off just governing themselves. Over a long enough period of time, certain groups would develop a social contract successful enough that you’d be back to where you started: entire nations governed by a single contract that establishes a shared conception of right and wrong and the responsibilities of each member in preserving the community as a whole.
When this agreement falls short of meeting everyone’s needs or priorities, portions of the group try to go it alone. We actually see this all the time in other countries: the dissolution of the Soviet Union, for example; or, more recently, Kosovo declaring independence from Serbia… which in turn used to be part of Yugoslavia. At some point, the social contract was perceived to have failed to meet the needs of portions of the group, so they decided to split off.
There’s even periodic talk of secession here - more than you might expect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession
Perhaps worthy of note is that, even in the case of our Civil War, secession was a state-wide decision, but originally was an act by individual states (South Carolina being the first) and eventually 11 of the 13 banded together to again form a larger group.
Arguably the primary reason why the United States has been so successful is because our social contract is so hierarchical: it defines at a federal level our collective values and responsibilities, but retains a concept of states, giving them some authority to refine the social contract at the state and local level. Once upon a time, “state” was actually synonymous with “nation”, which is why our federal State Department is responsible for maintaining our relationship with other nations and has nothing to do with the relationship between our own states.
Our system of government is actually very similar to the European Union, with two notable differences: 1) our federal government has far more authority over the populace 2) most Americans have a stronger sense of their American identity than of their state-specific identity. The latter was probably a direct result of the original states’ cooperation in achieving independence from Britain (another example where the social contract of a certain group was perceived to have failed a portion of its members), but has arguably been maintained ever since by the former. In contrast, it seems that most French people, for example, would consider themselves to be French first and European second.
The larger the identity, the more delicate the balance. Membership in the larger group must provide benefits (i.e. military / police protection, collective trade bargaining) that outweigh any ideological differences that exist between the constituents. As long as it’s a net positive, the whole stays intact. For example, many residents of Cleveland may not be satisfied with our current trade policies, but deep down they know that Ohio probably wouldn’t be able to negotiate better trade deals if it were its own nation without the collective leverage the U.S. currently enjoys. Michigan is notorious for having its own citizen militia, but it hasn’t gone so far as to claim it can autonomously protect itself without any federal assistance. Conversely, Massachusetts decided that, since the federal government isn’t yet facilitating “universal healthcare”, they were capable of doing so at the state level. Unfortunately, this took the form of a state law mandating coverage for all citizens, whether they could afford it or not, and have since backed off on that mandate. For what it’s worth, this is the only significant difference between Hillary and Barack’s healthcare plans: Barack’s plan mandates coverage for children, since they don’t have a choice whether or not to obtain their own; Hillary’s plan mandates coverage for all citizens.
Realizing that I probably haven’t answered any of the questions that you posed, here’s what I think it boils down to: we need to start paying much more attention to local elections. Most of us (myself included) paid almost no attention to federal politics prior to this election. If you’re a Republican (or right-leaning independent), you’re stuck deciding between supporting a candidate who isn’t really a true conservative, but was the best the party could come up with in a tough political environment, and supporting whoever gets the Democratic nomination, who in either scenario will definitely be even more liberal than McCain. If you’re a Democrat (or left-leaning independent), your nominee will have to overcome bigotry to win, whether it ends up being race or gender that figures as the factor that a surprising number of ignorant fools still think has any bearing on a candidate’s ability to effectively govern. On the bright side, either would definitely represent a stark departure from the disastrous policies of the last seven years. Personally, I support Barack wholeheartedly because he chooses to search for what we can agree on, instead of trying to win by constantly demonizing “the other side”. And the closest to a legitimate criticism of his candidacy that I’ve heard is that he doesn’t have much experience at the national level.
But I guess that’s my whole point. Most members of the US Congress used to be members of state legislatures, and often before that, held positions at the local level. If we’re dissatisfied with our options for President, we need to start paying really close attention to who we’re electing locally… before long, some of those folks will be candidates for governor or senator. And some of those will go on to be candidates for President. In the meantime, the closer we watch local politics, the more we’ll see things that we disagree with… locally. If we let those local politicians know, and hold them accountable, over time that reshapes each community’s sense of its own values and priorities, and that filters up to the national level. If enough of the populace were to stay engaged, I think we’d start noticing that the “issues” talked about in national elections more closely match what we actually care about, because at each level, the candidates have had to make progress on those issues to get, and stay, in office. I firmly believe that’s what would happen if we paid attention.
But we don’t. We think politics don’t affect us, because politicians don’t typically talk about the things that we think about on a daily basis. So we zone out, and don’t tell the politicians what’s bugging us. They don’t know what’s really important to us, so they talk about things that they think might be. When’s the last time any of us actually called our representative in Congress and gave them an earful about legislation we’d like to see them sponsor or vote for? In my case, never. In particular, when I heard five years ago that we might be going to war in Iraq, I had a feeling that’d be a bad idea, but I didn’t tell politicians that opinion. Two weeks ago I was in Reno, buying a tank of gas… for $3.56 a gallon. How’d it get so expensive? Well, the price of oil, and by extension, the price of gas, is determined not just on the traditional capitalist principle of supply and demand, but - probably more than any other commodity - also on anticipated supply and demand. Every time violence in Iraq threatens supply, the price goes up, even in cases where an incident was expected to impact supply but turns out later to not have had an impact (at which point the price marginally decreases). Every time our government hints at future military action against Iran - even when no timeframe is specified - the price goes up because at some unspecified future date, supply might be impacted. No guarantee, but there’s a risk, so the price goes up. Meanwhile, this makes oil as a commodity a more attractive investment in the short term than US currency, so large-scale investors have been shifting their assets from the dollar to oil. This devalues our currency, which increases our overall trade deficit because it takes more dollars to purchase the same quantity of imports. But (will it ever end?) the price of oil is calculated based on the dollar, so a weakened dollar raises the price of oil independently of supply and demand, and so on. The price of oil doesn’t just impact us at the pump; increased fuel costs make physical commodities more expensive to transport, so every manufacturer has two options: pass the price onto the consumer (us) or decrease profits; the latter option eventually translates into lost jobs. Either option weakens consumer confidence, which results in reduced consumer spending, which triggers interest rate reductions from the Fed in the hopes of avoiding a recession, but interest rate reductions trigger inflation. In other words, over time, absolutely everything costs just a little bit more. Anybody still think our foreign policy doesn’t affect all of us?
And don’t even get me started on predatory lending…..
April 6th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Holy shit, Tim.
Thank you SOOO much for such a well thought out response. I need to process this. I’ll get back to you. Love and stuff, Ash
April 7th, 2008 at 5:29 am
Tim has brought our debate Ash to it’s natural conclusion. No matter which way we formed our community and the others around it we would end up where we are now in this discussion. The fact is Ash that not all in the community want to be as active in it’s welfare as you do. That is unfortunate! You had to travel a long way back in time to find a war that even resembled an idealogical one; but, the Crusades were originally conceived by the religious West to halt the Muslim growth and expansion into the west. Europe was in the Dark Ages at the time and did not seem to care about this movement, the religious did. The rallying cry was religious but the deep reasons were more economic. The Arabs were gobbling up land, cultures, and people at an alarming rate and the Christians around the Mediterranean asked the Pope for intervention.
I’ve written and posted about this on my site on a series of articles called “The Money Machine” and I explored the “new” Islamic philosophy on society and economics in the more recent post “The Third Solution”. As Tim relates, there is safety in numbers but only if the population has their basic needs. Any imbalance would get us all squabbling again. This is what is happening right now as the global communities squabble for what is perceived as diminishing resources. In time there will be a need for a redistribution of this natural wealth, hopefully through peaceful means!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Okay, so I don’t know how in depth I can go at this time– because I’m still formulating my thoughts… but I wanted to interject that I’m not entirely disagreeing that we should have a large government affiliation– a cooperative between communities, so to speak.
I do think that many of the laws are overstepping the natural boundaries, laws which should be determined based upon the community’s standards.
I agree, many people do not want to be watch dogs. I think this stems from an attitude of not “HAVING” to be involved. I think we *should* be involved, though, because it’s ultimately our livelihood that is at stake.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
The process of having large communities as a cooperative lifestyle probably came about as a natural evolution of group systems and dynamics. As you point out Ash, the laws are what should be focused on so that they reflect the opinions of the society, they kind of support the mean average of the participating members. It would be easier to adjust the laws to a changing society than to try to use laws to get the society to change.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:23 am
This is absolutely what I’m getting at!
Essentially, we as a “community”– whether this is defined at a local, a state, or a national level– should be self governing. If our nation was really a democracy, we would have a direct influence on passing, establishing, or changing laws as is seen fit for the passing times.
Ultimately, the government NOW doesn’t allow for this. There are SO many laws that are created in order to protect us from ourselves (what’s the point? let us do what we will and then let _us_ take responsibility for the consequences!).
Now, I know this sounds awfully liberal and scary to many right-standing people… but at the same time, do you think we really cannot make the best decisions for ourselves?
I do acknowledge that we as humans demonstrate the social psychological phenomena of group lunacy, yes… a perfect example were the witch-trials in our younger years. However, if all people had the *right* to life– the *right* to rule their own bodies and their own lifestyle (including religion, as long as it agrees to harm no one, which for the record, is the first key tenant of witchcraft)… well, I see us as not only being a peaceful culture, but one that actually deals with the consequences of our behaviors.
Perhaps I give us too much credit… I see some of the crazy shit some very stupid people do. However, at the same time, if someone is dumb enough to go out and demonstrate risky behavior, wouldn’t we ultimately evolve to become much smarter folks? Survival of the fittest, right??
We become smarter collectively, and our populations would decrease, at the same time becoming more healthy. Decreasing populations would in turn provide less violence, less destruction, and I believe, significantly more peace.
April 12th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Some would argue Ash that the community has evolved into a more democratic society than ever before; but, apathy is hard to overcome. We have become smarter and fitter, more healthy and less destructive, but how does a decreasing population result from your scenario?
April 13th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Perhaps the decreasing population would be conscious decision based upon not creating more mouths to feed than we have resources for. It amazes me, and there are two sides to this argument, but I’m going to present it to you…
“People should not reproduce until they have the means to support their child.”
Conversely, many rebut: “No one is ever ready to support their child.”
I disagree. I think that reproduction is a CHOICE. And that if you have the means and the desires to parent– then by all means, go forth and multiply. However, there are SO many children to are conceived in the most vile circumstances that one cannot imagine how they’ll ever survive infancy & toddler-hood, and yet it’s the same parents who qualify for group discount Medicaid who continue to reproduce– for lack of education, lack of responsibility…
I’m not saying that all children raised in poverty are “poor” children, and that shouldn’t be here… just that many kids are neglected from the day they were conceived and there’s no reason why we as a culture can’t begin making conscious decisions and taking responsibility for ourselves and our offspring.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Population control is a dangerous political topic Ash, I’ve never heard it mentioned by politicians on either side of the Atlantic. After China made “one-child” families mandatory in the 70’s, and in the US about the same time was the “Zero Population Growth” ideas, not much has been said about it. You are right about education, that is the key. Global warming, peak oil, and water and food shortages are conditions brought about by the un-checked population explosion on the earth since the Industrial Revolution, there are six times as many people now in less than 200 years. If I may borrow a title from one of your other posts…We’re fucked!
April 15th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
See this article aboutFood shortages
April 16th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Agreed that population control is a sticky topic. I absolutely don’t think it should be court or government mandated. However, I believe that as we become more knowledgeable, more and more of us will begin to choose less expanding decisions…
April 16th, 2008 at 11:25 am
AND forgive me for saying this… but perhaps food shortages are our greatest blessing. If we would not expand to the point of being unable to provide for ourselves, then perhaps we wouldn’t insatiably consume so much of the rest of the Earth’s resources.
I hesitate to say this… but I’m going to go ahead and go with it. When we began farming– and then went into a MASSIVE agriculture business, especially the animal farms and and wheat fields to support them, we caused ourselves our OWN demise. There weren’t these food shortages until we started a) killing off competition looking for food so that we as the killers could expand to the point where we couldn’t support ourselves and b) farming and then hoarding what we’ve sown… and then dumping it all back into the meat businesses…
*Stepping back and watching the flames burn*
April 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am
At what point, and under what conditions, in the future do you think that cannabilism will be justifiable?
April 17th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I think that cannabilism is not entirely ethically “Wrong.”
Obviously it’s socially “Wrong.”
I’m not terribly certain how nutritious it is. I mean, I see a huge population of people who drink Diet Soda with their McDonalds and eat processed cheese from a can. I don’t know how healthy human consumption would be!!!
April 17th, 2008 at 11:29 am
There was a movie a long time ago called “Soylent Green” where the human remains were processed into snacks to feed a starving population. The consumers were not told what they were eating, and volunteers who felt their lives were over anyways went to “centers” where they were treated and fed well before extermination and processing. I cannot ever look at a can of Pringles without thinking of that movie!
April 17th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I have heard of this movie once before. Now that It’s been brought up twice, I MUST see this.
Sounds gruesome.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Ash, there is a court case coming up in the next few days here in Ireland you might be interested in. A Jehovah’s Witness couple are about to give birth to twins who are going to need a blood transfusion to survive and they are refusing to give their consent. Should the courts (the community) interfere with this real life drama?
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
[…] There was a discussion on this very topic at Ash’s place over at Into the Rabbit Hole as to what the community responsibility should be when an eleven year old girl was allowed to die […]