A World for all People

Dear Readers,

Please forgive me for not posting with the consistency that you are used to.  I am on vacation and have been doing holiday 'things' with my family.  I will be posting every day, but it may be late or first thing the next morning (like the post below).   Please know that the regularity will return after the first of the year.

With Thanks for your understanding,

Bill



Post for 12/26 -

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to everyone.  What an amazing country we live in, where we have the freedom to practice any religion we please, or not practice a religion at all for that matter, without repercussions from a governing body.  In many countries around the world, this is simply not possible.  In those countries people are coerced into religious compliance for fear of unwanted and unpleasant consequences from governments.  Morality can not be legislated, but it certainly helps to hold basic human nature in check.

Humans, the world over, have an innate drive to have prejudices against other humans that do not think as they do.  Jews don't trust Muslims.   Christians don't like Jews and don't trust Muslims.  Muslims don't like or trust  Jews and Christians.  In our politically correct world, these are statements that we find repugnant and use a  broad brush to paint the picture.  Although I know that no group is monolithic and no individual can be judged due to the 'group' they 'belong' to,   I believe these statements basically hold true.  It is the human condition.  Don't ask me why, I don't know.  But.......looking at history, it seems undeniable.

We are certainly not immune in our country, but we have a circuit breaker, a firewall.  It does not block the issue in the all of the private sector, but it does prevent the issue from occurring in government and to some extent in the private sector.  For instance, it is illegal to use discrimination in any way, including religion, to discriminate in hiring practices.  In other countries this would not be an issue for an employer.

I believe we have entered into another era of 'Crusades'.  I believe that historians, from the longer view, will see behavior in many areas around the world in the same way that we now view the Crusades of the dark and middle ages.  Both Christians and Muslims have a greater capability to prosecute such a conflict, to do so with greater ferocity and to conduct such a war on a world wide basis.  Jews are not above such a conflict and have most likely been integral in setting up these 'bad' feelings. All parties feel as though they are the offended group and feel fully justified in what amounts to hate.  Go ask many Jews how they feel about Muslims and the answer will be one of distrust and hate.  Ask Many Muslims how the feel about Jews....... distrust and hate.  Members of both groups will give you logical and salient reasons.  Now that a very small group of terrorists (relative to the religious group that they claim to represent) has committed acts of terrorism in both the U.S. and in Europe, just ask many 'Christians' in the U.S. how they feel about Muslims.  You guessed it, distrust and hate.  They may not even try to mask the hatred with cloaked language.

So......what to do?  I do not claim to have the answer.  If anyone had the answer the world would be a better, less violent place now.  I believe our job, in this country and across the world is to start to define that path for our children and future generations.  The U.S. Constitution started us down that road, but we have stalled and even taken a few steps backwards.  What we need, to move forward again, are leaders in our country and around our globe to espouse peace, tolerance and a place for all people on our planet.  The fact that this is an idealistic view is not lost on me.  Our current reality is evident and unfortunately, I do not see anyone in current leadership positions that have an interest in supporting this message.  Our job is to place pressure on our leaders, with all the peaceful means we can think of, to be more idealistic and make that the new reality.