Socrates, Crito, and the 2016 Election

One of my favorite things about Philosophy is how evergreen it is. It's amazing to me that something that was written in 350 BC can be so very relevant to what we do every day, but I guess that's the entire point of the philosophical adventure --getting to the heart of what makes us human. And when we find that heart, it's really no surprise that humanity hasn't changed much.

There has been a great deal of talk about not voting for a presidential candidate in the upcoming presidential election, and, instead, voting down ticket. This is even something that I have toyed with, though I have made no firm statements about what I intend to do. Each of us must vote our own conscience. I only offer these posts as a check to you and to myself --are you sure you know what you are voting for and what that will mean if carried to its logical conclusion?

So, the question this week is: Should Catholics participate in this election fully? I think that the answer to that question is an emphatic and undeniable, "Yes!"

Plato's work, Crito, falls in the life of Socrates, after he is convicted (Apology) of corrupting the youth of Athens and before he is executed (Phaedo). Crito is named for Socrates' interlocutor for this dialogue. A close family friend (a member of his deme) who is a man of means and has connections, Crito has shown up at Socrates' cell just before dawn to break him out and spirit him away before he can be executed. He has bribed the guards and has arranged for Socrates to be taken to another city to live out his days in peace. Socrates, who is an old man of 70, turns Crito down.

Scholars have argued over the intervening centuries as to why Socrates wouldn't go with Crito --some say that it is because he was old and tired of the fight, but most agree that it is to prove a point that the Athenians got what they wanted, (but not what they needed,) by executing him.

In the course of the dialogue, Socrates gives his reasons for staying. First, that by leaving, he would do harm to his reputation as a philosopher. He would be branded as a coward, or worse, as a dishonest man. He had spent his life trying to get the Athenians to govern themselves, personally and politically, with wisdom and to be the same man in public as each was in private. To be one man in private and another in public was, to Socrates, dishonest and did not move one closer to living the best life (which is what ethics is all about). By eliminating his voice, the Athenians might sleep more soundly in the short term and not have to give adequate thought to the laws and governance of the city, but in the long-term that inattention to wisdom will ultimately be their undoing. This is a "prophecy" that Socrates makes in the Apology, but he reiterates it here in the Crito. This, however, is not the argument he spends the most time on.

The argument I really want to focus on is that Socrates tells Crito that he has been a citizen of Athens from his birth and as such, he had taken advantage of the protections of the laws of Athens. Though Socrates has not participated actively in the political life of his city-state, he has benefited from the stability of the political life and the laws that govern him. Plato spends a great deal of time in this dialogue working through a soliloquy that is an imagined dialogue between Socrates and the Laws of Athens. This argument is a two-fold warning for us here in 2016.

First, Socrates gives a defense of the laws themselves. We cannot say that we agree to be governed by the laws of our country and then pick and choose which laws we will follow and which ones we will not. Socrates tells us that he agreed to abide by the laws of Athens and that includes the laws that he disagrees with but were legislated appropriately with a majority vote. This means that if Socrates benefits by the laws of Athens and they say that he should die for his crimes, then he must abide by those laws, too.

This is a warning for the single-issue voter. If you would have a wisely governed country, then you must pay attention to the whole picture. You don't want to be the one working on the cat puzzle while everyone else is working on the balloon puzzle. If you are only focused on one piece of the puzzle, it's easy to miss all the other pieces that make that picture complete. Socrates was so worried about gaining wisdom, that he missed the political piece of the picture that ultimately killed him. (Or maybe he didn't. Maybe his death was the final thing he had to teach the people of Athens --that's a debate I have heard, too!) 

When we focus on a single issue, we can miss the other pieces that would make that issue work more effectively. Legislation that improves life for those who are poor and helps to heal some of the generational effects of poverty treats the roots of the abortion issue, not just the symptom. Ignoring these other issues and clinging only to one piece of that very complex problem ignores a set of tools that might be more effective in ending the scourge of abortion in the long run.

Am I saying that pro-life legislation is worthless? NOT AT ALL. I think it needs to be approached holistically and right now, the approach is not holistic. When we have pro-life public figures actively tearing down victims of sexual assault and defending the indefensible, in the name of respecting all women --including the unborn --we have a big problem with cognitive dissonance.

Secondly, we can infer that Socrates is encouraging us not to stand by and allow laws to be made in our name (as citizens) that we do not agree with. We must use our voices to hold our government accountable. By standing aside and allowing laws to be made without his active participation, Socrates has become the unintentional victim of his own lack of involvement in the political process.

This is a warning for the apathetic voter - if you don't vote, you may be the unintentional victim of what comes next. Whether you vote for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, a third-party candidate or no one, you will still be subject to the winner's rule. That's the agreement we make as citizens of the United States. We benefit from all of the freedoms (and, yes! there are still many more that we enjoy than citizens of other nations) but this also means that we must accept the outcome of the political process. If you do not participate, then you have no hand in that decision.

There is a saying in the Catholic Church that we always get the vocations that we deserve. I think that the same can be said of our politicians in the United States. My daughter, quite frankly, is furious with all of us. This is her very first presidential election as a voter "...and these are the choices you're giving me?" But, maybe we really do deserve exactly these choices. It's up to us to choose wisely and force the parties we have left after this election to make better choices in 2020.


Photo: "The Death of Socrates"  Jacques-Louis David (detail)

Want to read Crito for yourself? Click here to get access to a free online copy.

#NotOkay: Sexual Assault and the Politics of Winning

Trigger Warning -- Sexual Assault Descriptions

"Silence" - Johann Heinrich Fuessli (1741 - 1825)

Canadian journalist, Kelly Oxford (@kellyoxford), has been running a Twitter campaign in response to Donald Trump's 2005 remarks regarding the treatment of women and fame that has drawn more than one million women (no exaggeration here) out of silence to talk about their sexual assaults. I started to participate but decided that I had more to say than 140 characters would hold.

Since my childhood, I have been the victim of 7 sexual assaults, only two of which I reported.

5 years old - In my own backyard. I was stopped by a man in a car in the alley behind my house who showed me "what (he had) in his pants" and then offered me the opportunity to put my mouth on it. I declined but never told anyone because I had no idea that it was anything but just gross.
8 years old - At a Summer Camp, I was taken into a grove of pine trees by a group of boys, who raised my shirt to look at my breasts (which were apparently unimpressive, whereupon, I was let go). I reported this to my counselor who went looking for the boy I could describe. When he was found, he denied the whole thing and I was told to stop making things up.
10 years old - In my house, my babysitter decided to feel me up while "making sure I was in my bed." When I told him to stop it, he did, so I never told my parents.
11 years old - On the city bus, I was seated on a bench seat. The man who sat next to me began to spread his legs out until they were touching mine. I didn't realize what was going on until he put his hand on the seat next to me and started to touch my hip. I got off at the next stop and waited for the next bus and assumed that it was just me being hypersensitive.
12 years old - On my paper route, I was collecting for the monthly bill. An old man who had been very kindly toward me and had several grandchildren that he looked after, grabbed my breasts (which were more impressive than they were when I was 8) and humped me. He told me I was a good girl and he'd take good care of me. I quit carrying papers that month. I never told anyone because I figured that no one would believe me.
14 years old - At a babysitting job, a man who had been a guest in the house for dinner, stayed to help me with the dishes and then stayed to help himself to a little heavy petting. I participated, but he was 28. I was 14 and he knew it. I never considered this an assault until last year when I realized what had really been going on.
16 years old - At a party, I was given enough beer to get pretty well trashed and then raped by a co-worker who was twice my age. When I finally told my parents, because I was so ashamed that I had been at a party where I should not have been, nothing could be done about it.

Why are these stories so important to tell and what does this have to do with the 2016 Election?

The stories are important to tell because they point to an objectification of women that stretches far back into our history. Women and girls are simply tools for gratification. Actually, rather than raising our stock to "personhood" feminism has simply degraded the stock of men, so we objectify them, too. This has now become pervasive in our society, so much so that we have enshrined it in our entertainment.

Take a look at our obsession with shows like The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Survivor, and Big Brother. And how about the 50 Shades trilogy? We are making those people into objects for our own gratification. We are seeking our entertainment from watching their pain and discomfort. It is this obsession with people's discomfort that drives these sexual assaults. It's all about power: I can make you flinch or do what I want you to do.

This objectification of people has everything to do with this year's election because BOTH candidates are guilty of using and abusing people in order to gain power and pleasure. This is the battle we have been ignoring. We've been following this wild dog of objectification and it's about to turn around and bite us in the collective face.

There are many who are defending Donald Trump by saying that these were just lewd comments and that actions speak louder than words. This ignores the fact that he is describing an actual encounter in which he sexually imposed himself on a woman without her consent. This is an admission of an actual sexual assault. Furthermore, it belies a much more deep-seated issue that Mr. Trump seems to struggle with on all fronts - the dehumanization and objectification of all people. For Trump, everyone is an object --a tool, if you will -- for his gratification.

He has displayed this same contempt for the women in his family, giving shock jock, Howard Stern, permission to call his daughter Ivanka "a piece of ass" and making the comment that he thinks his daughter is hot and he would sleep with her.

Really? This is the man we want representing our country? Even in his apology, he says "I'm sorry if you were offended" squarely placing the blame on those who are offended, and not taking the blame himself.

I have said before that I do not believe that the man is pro-life. He views those children's lives as a tool to get elected. If that rhetoric does not serve him in the discharge of his office, if he does not get what he wants, he will dump it.

Hillary Clinton is not immune to this objectification problem, either. No, she's not objectifying beautiful women, just because they are beautiful, but dig into her remarks about the White House interns and the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting them.

The problem is NOT that she stayed with her husband, the problem is how she treated the victims of those assaults. She shamed those women. She told them to stop making things up so that she would not lose power. First they were objects for her husband's gratification, then they became objects that were not doing what she wanted them to do, so she shamed them into silence.

Sound familiar? It does to me.

I was silent about my sexual assaults because I was told to stop making things up when I was 8, because a camp counselor just wanted to go hang out at the campfire with the other counselors. How many other women and girls suffered at these men's hands because I was silent? I'd be willing to bet it was more than one and even one more is too many.

Hillary Clinton should have to answer for this. I hope that she does, but I am not naive enough to think that this will actually happen.

What bothers me most about this "Trumpster fire" is the Cirque du Soleil-like contortions being engaged in by his supporters in order to win this year. And make no mistake, it is about winning, not being right. Right would be a move toward overall virtue. There is more than one virtue, Pro-life America!

I know Hillary is no saint, but Donald makes her look like flipping Mother Teresa. The objectification of women is only the latest way in which he has dehumanized large groups of people. The poor, immigrants, anyone who disagrees with him, fat people, ugly people, disabled people... It's not that he's so very different than any other politician --they have all objectified groups of people and individuals for their own personal gain or pleasure. It's that he's so very proud of what he has done.

Basically, to Donald Trump, if you are not white, wealthy and male, you are not a person. You are a tool.

Please, don't be a tool. Vote. And vote smart. 

If you are a Catholic, you cannot in good conscience vote for either one of these candidates, but do not be silent. My suggestion to you is to vote solidly pro-life (in all senses of that word) down-ticket. If you are concerned that Hillary Clinton would put pro-choice justices on the Supreme Court, vote in enough pro-life legislators to block that initiative. If you are concerned that Donald Trump would just run the country into the ground and get us into wars around the world then vote in legislators that would keep him in check.

Artwork:  Public Domain

An Open Letter to my Friends Who Engage in Food Stamp Recipient Shaming

There's a problem with this meme. Read more below.

Dearest Friends,
My husband and I have had a rough life. We have been on food stamps, have received Medicaid for many years, went without a car for about five years, and even went with no heat and no hot water for a few years. At one point, we were actually homeless. Yes, it's true. Homeless.
Poverty, it seems, has many faces --some that you might not expect.
We relied (heavily) on the charity of others. It was painful to ask for help. You cannot possibly know the shame involved in asking St. Vincent de Paul for yet another stopgap and having them ask you if you're working. You may not realize what it's like to be told, "You don't really need this. Go get a job! Who do you think you are?" I truly hope you don't know the shame of knowing that your pastor thinks that you are less than worthy of his time because you're "just using the church as an extra income."
We did not just sit around and wait for people to hand us things. We went to work. Every. Day. In all places we found ourselves, we tried to make the world a little better.
Yes, we did make stupid decisions, but we made smart decisions occasionally, too. We moved from place to place, hoping that this time we would be able to make it work, but only recently has that been the reality. We worked hard, but we also had moments that could be characterized as lazy. Or maybe that was the depression that set in when we realized that our family was relying on us and we couldn't make it work.
Why am I telling you this?
I see so many people in my Facebook thread passing around a nasty little meme that likens those who receive food stamps to animals in the National Parks.

Stop it.

Charitably, I have decided that you don't really think that my life and the lives of my children and husband are only worth as much as animals in a park. I would certainly hope that anyone who knows me, personally, would believe that I was worth more to them than a raccoon, or an opossum, or even a bear. Again, charitably, I have decided that you don't really think that people who are poor are expendable.

But maybe you do; maybe I'm wrong about you, my friends.
When you engage in this kind of argument --an argument that casts people as something other than human beings, be that Skittles or wild animals --you turn those people into objects. I don't really believe that you do view all creatures as objects, but be aware, that if you do, then you are subscribing to a philosophy called Preference Utilitarianism. Here's a quick and dirty breakdown of this Philosophy:

1)    There are things that are right and wrong.

2)    Decisions of right and wrong are made based on the amount of happiness they cause.

i)      Right = Greatest Amount of Happiness

ii)     Wrong = Lesser Amount of Happiness

3)    Happiness is a satisfaction of preferences.

4)    The more preferences that are satisfied across a population (and that population could be as small as a couple or as big as the whole world) the more right the action is.

5)       It is your moral responsibility to satisfy the majority of a population's preferences, even if it doesn't satisfy your own preference.

Well, now this is all very logical. Let's apply it: Allowing refugees into the US doesn't satisfy many people's preference for safety, so we keep them out. Many of them die, but that's okay, because our population's preference for safety is satisfied. We are fulfilling our societal obligations and moral responsibilities by satisfying those preferences for safety. If we don't have to think of refugees as human beings then it makes it much easier to ignore their suffering.
Paying taxes that are redistributed as money for food doesn't satisfy many people's preference for being able to hang on to more of the money that they worked hard for. Studies have shown that those who are raised in homes where food sources are not stable are about twice as likely to suffer cognitive disabilities due to poor nutrition,and will likely be impoverished as adults, but that's okay, because our preference for having what we want is satisfied. If we think of food stamp recipients as animals in a park, then we can ignore the fact that 1 out of 4 children are going to bed hungry tonight. (I have other arguments attached to this about educational reform and hunger affecting the long-term preferences of society and the fact that by not considering these folks as having preferences, we dehumanize them even further --but that's a whole discussion on its own.)
All of that said, Preferential Utilitarianism is a big problem if you're Catholic. When we follow this philosophy all the way to its logical end we'll discover it's the root of what has caused the problem of abortion. If we don't have to think about the fact that a fetus is human, then it makes it much easier to "get rid of". Right?
Let's go a step further: You find out that a child you are carrying is going to live, but will be severely disabled. This child will be on governmental assistance programs to help care for them. This is a burden on society and also the family. Under this philosophy, you have a moral responsibility to abort this child because it satisfies the majority of the population's preference to keep more of the money that they earn. Further? If the child is already born and will be a drain on society's resources, it is incumbent upon you to kill the child.
Wait, first we were talking about food stamps and suddenly we're talking about infanticide? Yes, it does go that far. In all respects, this philosophy removes the human aspect of a creature and treats everything as equal, (animals, people, Skittles) insofar as they satisfy or don't satisfy preferences.
So, if you are arguing that food stamp recipients are like bears, you have embraced this form of Utilitarianism. Is that really what you think? This is completely counter to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Maybe we amuse you. Maybe we inspire you. Maybe one of us is useful to you in some way. But do you care about us? Do you love us for who we are, not what we offer you?
Please do let me know. I would hate to waste any more of your precious time and resources. I will not unfriend you. I will probably not block you, but I will try to convince you that I am worth something more than a wild pig or a coyote.
Yes, I was a government assistance recipient. I got off of it and it was hard work, but it happened. So, no, we don't become dependent like hand-fed animals.
Yes, I am a human being with feelings, thoughts and a will to live as are many, many of the other government assistance recipients out there, and yet, I, and the thousands of others who have to rely on the government for food each month, have something to contribute to the well-being of this world. Even if that contribution is only an opportunity for you to practice charity.

On Moral Dilemmas and Not Giving Up the Ship

"Oil on Troubled Waters" by Frank Mason 

A friend of mine put this quote up on my Facebook page today:

"You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds… What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can."

— St. Thomas More

This is SO apropos for our current political situation; don't you think? What do we do when there are no good options?

There are really two parts to this quote and while they are not completely unrelated, I want to address them separately. Let's start with the back piece first: "What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as possible," and that will lead us to the Ship.

Having recently spent a semester pondering the question of moral dilemmas*, this quote struck me as an endorsement of Gratian's exhortation in the Decretum that when hemmed in by two obviously bad choices, one must always choose the lesser of two evils because it leads you closer to virtue in the end. That would seem to be in line with St. Thomas More’s quote.

But, in later centuries, as Gratian's writings were used to train future generations, there were later thinkers who argued with Gratian. They are called the Glossators because they wrote "glosses" (or notes, or marginalia) on the original text.

The Glossators hold that "The Master (that's Gratian) errs gravely" when he counsels taking the lesser of two evils. They hold, instead, that God would never put us into a situation where there would ever be no good option. To hold that there are moral dilemmas in which there are no good choices, is to hold that God is not merciful. The Glossators go on to say that since we know that God is all-good and all-loving, he would never put us into a situation where we would have to jeopardize our immortal souls.

Okay, so quick recap:

Gratian: Moral dilemmas exist and if you encounter one, you should choose the lesser of two evils.
Glossators: Moral dilemmas do not exist, so if you encounter one, it's not really a moral dilemma, there is another choice you haven't come up with.

Aquinas does some thinking about this idea of moral dilemmas, too. In De Malo (On Evil,) he suggests that there are moral dilemmas, but he breaks them down into two types: simpliciter and secundum quid.

Dilemmas Simpliciter are stiuations where an agent, through no fault of their own, must choose between two equally bad options. Aquinas thinks that if these exist, they are very rare.

Secundum Quid Dilemmas are moral dilemmas that come about because of the agent's past actions. These actions can be decisions that were made years previous, but still come back to bite you in the end. Aquinas thinks that these are much more common.

Another quick recap:

Aquinas believes that there are moral dilemmas—situations where there is no good choice –but these are dilemmas of our own making (secundum quid). In line with Aquinas' very Aristotelian thought, there is, in fact, a cause for everything!

“Don’t give up the Ship!”

Many of my friends and relatives have chosen to support Mr. Trump. They see him as the lesser of two evils. My friends and relatives insist that I should not “give up the ship just because I cannot control the winds.” But I say that there must be a way to reset the sails and capture those winds for the benefit of all.

For 30 years, I have been a committed and active Republican. I even convinced my husband, a committed and active Democrat, to vote for Republican candidates because I believed that they were the better option. They said, and did, the right things where the question of abortion was concerned. Given this framework, the problems with supporting Hillary Clinton as a candidate are obvious. Donald Trump says all the right things - of course he does; he's a salesman - but I see no real evidence of his commitment to the Truth. What has he done to back these claims of pro-life commitment?

Sure, he says that he has accepted Christ and is now a committed Christian. A friend even likened him to Saul of Tarsus at one point, but even Saul had to prove his commitment to Peter. Saul had been wounded and had to be healed, and in order to do that, he had to be humble before Peter and the other apostles. I see no evidence in Donald Trump’s swaggering braggadocio that he has been knocked to the ground by his wounds. In addition, the rhetoric he employs in terms of who can be in America, who can move about freely – essentially determinations of personhood –are so far beyond the scope of Catholic Teaching as to be terrifying.

I do not believe that he is pro-life.

So what do we have here between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump?  In our two-party system, there seems to be an overall sense that this is an either/or choice. Even if we broaden our choices our to include Mr. Johnson (the Libertarian candidate) and Ms. Klein (the Green candidate), we still find no support for a pro-life stance.

If, as Catholics of good conscience, we are bound not to vote for someone who has stated that they support abortion rights, in that sense, I believe that we have a moral dilemma. But, I think that what we have here is a Secundum Quid dilemma. We, as a society, have allowed this to happen with our choices.

Rather than Catholics standing together and saying, “there must be another way,” we have acquiesced to the two-party argument that to choose a third way is to throw our votes away. By always choosing the lesser of two evils, as Gratian suggests, we have not moved toward virtue, we have moved further away from it.

We believed that the Republicans would change the federal laws governing abortion, but when they had control of the House, Senate, White House and Supreme Court, they did nothing. Nothing.

We have allowed the political powers-that-be to steal our voices and use them to bring forth ideas and laws that we, as Catholics, do not support. Since when does a stranger in a strange land get told, “Sorry, no room in the inn”? This is a reaction born out of Fear. Aquinas addresses this in another spot: “Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.”

We have allowed Fear to rule us, not Love and not Wisdom, and it has led us to this moral dilemma.

In a democratic republic, it is true, not every single vote counts, but a large enough groundswell can change the course of the river. We must stand against that tide as Catholics. We must stand up for our principles and we must vote with our consciences. My conscience tells me that Donald Trump, and the Republicans who support him are erring gravely and are leading us to worse places in the very near future.

I read a book during my Junior year of college that changed my life: Plato's Republic. In it, Plato lays out all of the different types of people and political systems we have in the world. He details the decay of civilization and predicts with stunning accuracy how we will get to each stage – from Monarchy to Aristocracy to Oligarchy to Democracy to Tyranny.

As I read, I realized that we have passed through all of them in human history and we are just a breath away from Tyranny in this country. Plato actually names Tolerance as one of the forerunners of Tyranny. To put it succinctly, he predicts that we will be so open-minded that our brains will fall out. But Tolerance is meant in many senses here. We buck against toleration of ideas that go against our own, especially when we see that they are damaging to the society at large. And that is as it should be. We should stand up for wise governance.

But, if we are willing to tolerate someone who admires leaders and people who lie and kill to get what they want (or who actually are leaders who lie and kill to get what they want), and who are so hungry for power that they will say or do anything to get it, then we are just as bad as those who tolerate other sins against the Father.

I cannot in good conscience vote for a person who has no record of being a decent and wise human being in the name of "winning". If we Catholics, as a group, do not rise up and say "no more!" this situation will continue to degrade and we will find ourselves prisoners of our own choices.

In fact, Plato addresses that, too. One of the hallmarks of tyranny is the lack of freedom --not just for the governed, but for the individual tyrant. He is a prisoner of his own desires, always wanting more. He constantly worries about how he will keep his power and who is coming to take it from him. He fears for his life. 

We might already be there. When you have to ask what is the lesser of two evils, that means you are trapped.

There are those who have advocated standing back and letting it all play out --the so-called Amish-Option. Even if we choose to exercise that option this time, we should never stand quietly. Moving forward, we should choose our champions wisely. It is, perhaps, time to consider that the two-party system does not serve us well. The either/or fallacy that this system sets up can be broken by a significant enough shock --but we MUST find the third way.

Fortunately, Aquinas gives us one more piece of advice for dealing with secundum quid dilemmas: he tells us that the only way out is through confession, penance and amendment. I don't think it's any accident that Jesus tells us, quite plainly, that He is the Way and the place that we can find him is in the Sacraments.

*Apologies to Michael V. Dougherty, PhD (my excellent professor at Ohio Dominican University, who wrote an excellent book on the subject of moral dilemmas) - I'm doing this from memory because my notes are in storage.

Just a note: the idea of moral dilemmas is not a settled question. The debate is still going on today. This is just the information I am working with and what I hold to be true. You may disagree. You may believe Gratian. I believe Aquinas.

On the question of Charity

While surfing around on Facebook, I came across this post:

Shame on you America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. 99% of people won't have the guts to copy and repost this.

I had heard about this post going around from my sister-in-law at Sunday Dinner this evening, but was shocked to find it popping up on my friend's statuses. I was shocked. Did the person who posted this even consider what this said? Are you seriously saying that we should not help a foreign country whose entire infrastructure was completely obliterated through no fault of their own? Are you saying that we need to take care of our own first and then worry about everyone else? Is that what Jesus did? (Yes, these people are purportedly Catholics.)

I understand that you might be surprised or even a little outraged by the lack of care that the poor in our own country receive. Often times, it does not seem like enough. Everyone can tell you an anecdotal story about someone they know, or some one who knows someone who needed help and couldn't get it. However, I will tell you, there is a great deal of help out there for those that need it. All they need to do is ask. Often, they are too proud to do so. And I don't mean to sound hard, but I know. I know what it's like to sit in the welfare office. I have been there.

Something else to consider, if you are a person who agrees with the above Facebook post: What are YOU doing to change it? Likely, simply throwing money at the problem will not be the solution. I have found that people make the difference. Don't wait for "someone else" to do it! If you are really concerned about the poor and the homeless sit next to them on the bus. Be kind to them, even when they smell horrible. When they ask you for money, offer to buy them a sandwich. If they are really hungry, they'll take you up on that. If they're looking to score, they won't.

If you are worried about the elderly, go visit them. Show them that you care. Make sure they take their meds. Every drug company in the country offers a discount program. Help them take advantage of those programs.

The mentally ill...well, I could tell you all about that. Most of those who are not receiving treatment do not wish to. They feel that it dulls their senses. Good luck convincing them otherwise, but please do try. It may be the only hope they have.

In our country's history the only times we have suffered great financial and diplomatic hardships have been in periods of isolationism. This post made my blood run cold. I was reminded of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in World War I while the U.S. isolated themselves from the "problems of Europe". A war that could have been cut much shorter had the U.S. been involved earlier. I was reminded of the tariff war that followed World War I. The United States, desperate to protect their own borders and interests, sparked a tariff war with rebuilding European nations. It has been argued that the spiraling tariffs were a major contributing factor to the Great Depression. I was also reminded of the Holocaust in the 1930's and 1940's, where the United States stood by and insisted, "Oh, it's not our problem."

Devastation to the human race is everyone's concern. It always has been and always will be, no matter what color the human's skin happens to be or what language they speak.

Voting

I arrived at the polls at about 6 am this morning. I was second in line (or so I thought). The guy ahead of me was my next-door neighbor and shortly after I arrived, the rest of my neighbors arrived. It was like a big party in front of the school. At about 6:32 we decided that we'd check to see if the door was open so we could go in to vote. It was at that point that we discovered that we had all been waiting at the wrong entrance! There were a couple of hundred people already in line. I listened to people talking amongst themselves. Some of the people had never voted in an election before!

I was amazed. I cannot remember a time when I didn't have some sense of the political process. As a child, I can remember forming political opinions (childish though they were). I can remember deciding that I liked Jimmy Carter because he promised never to have a Press Conference during "Little House on the Prairie" on Mondays at 8 pm. OK...I was six. It sounded like a good political promise at the time.

This year, the debates and the topics are more grown-up and more important than ever before. It only took me about 45 minutes to get through the line at my poll this morning and was well worth the time. I urge you, if you haven't done so already, to go vote. Vote your conscience. Everyone has a voice and everyone's voice should be heard.

Speaking your mind

There is a right way and a wrong way to speak one's mind. My daughter, The Princess, found this out yesterday.

When I was in 8th Grade, I had a teacher who didn't listen to what I was saying to her. We were preparing to take a test, "the Pimsleur test", which was a standardized test. We were instructed to sharpen two pencils before we left the classroom and then to get in line to go to the gym. I, being the good Catholic School girl I was, followed directions and did just that. But, on the way to the gym, where we were taking the test, someone bumped my hand and I dropped my pencils on the tile floor, breaking BOTH leads. I was annoyed, but no matter, I would just explain to the teacher when we got to the gym.

The problem was, that when we got to the gym and I explained the situation, my teacher didn't understand what I was telling her. She said, "I told you to take care of that before we came down."

Well, never one to let things rest, I responded with, "You saw me sharpen them, (I didn't say stupid, but I wanted to...) you weren't listening to what I said." She told me to sit down. I was not amused and not deterred. And we repeated the conversation. This pattern contiued for about three rounds until she sent me to the Principal's Office, where I informed the Principal that she needed a new teacher; mine was too stupid to listen when people spoke to her. That time I did say "stupid" and that got me in trouble.

She called my mother, but I was NOT suspended.

The Princess, on the other hand, has not learned the graceful art of righteous indignation. And there is an art. Most of it has to do with keeping your tongue in check. Not my strong suit, and evidently not hers, either.

So, yesterday, when she gave her friend a hug (which, BTW, in the Columbus Public Schools is strictly forbidden) and was called on the carpet. She informed them that she was leaving the school since they would not allow her to go back to class. When the Principal tried to stop her, she told him what she thought of this rule, in no uncertain terms. And when she believed that he was not listening to what she was saying to him, she was not polite at all. I am still not sure what she said, but I understand it was laced with obscenities.

They called her father, and they suspended her for 10 days. Not for telling off the Principal (which would have made more sense), but for hugging a friend who needed comforting. This cuts her out of her concert (where she had a solo) and the last day of school (so she's all done for the year).

What would have made this situation different for her? Speaking her mind without using foul language.

Foul Language has become so commonplace in our vocabulary that many people don't even realize they are swearing. The F-word has become like punctuation in the ghetto idiom. It's almost like a rhythm keeper for their cadence. But, it is not just the lower class. You hear these words everywhere. They offend, yet, they are in use by virtually everyone who has a mouth to speak with.

I am certainly not lily-white. Until high school I didn't swear or curse at all. In fact, I was horribly scandalized that the boys in the tuba section were so crass in front of me. But, in wanting to be "one of the guys", I eventually became de-sensitized to it and would join in. A very bad habit. And one that I still have yet to break. My husband will tell you that my tongue is black. I am sure that this is where The Princess gets the idea that she can use this language to speak about the injustices of the world, but she is wrong. I am wrong. And society is wrong for allowing this to happen. These words should not be a part of our everyday speech patterns.

Everytime we open our mouths to say something negative, a swear word does not have to come out. I don't know if any of my readers are as bad as I am, but I challenge you to keep a tally for one day. Keep a tally of how many times you use a swear word. Every word counts, not just the first one in a sentence.

Then think about this. What message are we sending to the world around us about what we think of what we say? Is what we have to say important enough to us to communicate it clearly, in a manner that will not offend our listeners, but convince them instead? Or do we just want to be angry and never have our thoughts adequately heard?

I think it's an important distinction and one that I hope I am not too late to teach my daughter.

If you want peace...

There is a bumper sticker that has been around for years: "If you want peace, work for justice." I have always hated that bumper sticker. It always rang false to me, and now I know why. Working for justice will almost always bring about a war. And whose justice are we working fo, anyway? Justice as we understand it is different for each person and is completely subjective.

No, if you want peace, you need to work for mercy. It's a much harder fight, but well worth it.

Election Day

I didn't vote yesterday in the primaries.
I kind of feel bad about it. I have always been very politically active, but in the last few years I have become very cynical about politics and what they accomplish (or don't accomplish). Frankly, I am not all that impressed by any of the choices we have been given for President this year.

Why am I so cynical? I think it has to do with the fact that as with anything in this life, you can't please all the people all the time. Only politicians have to do this on such a grand scale that they end up selling themselves and the people who voted for them out, time and time again.

Look at Bill Clinton: "I won't sign NAFTA"...Really? Two weeks into his presidency, he signed NAFTA. Look at George Bush (the elder): "No new Taxes."...Really? In his first year, he raised taxes.

This betrayal cuts across party lines. It has nothing to do with how much money you spent on your campaign or whether you wear boxers or briefs. It has to do with pleasing most of the people, most of the time. Actually, rather, it has to do with pleasing the right people at the right time.

I vote pro-life...only, truly, I tell you, I cannot find a real pro-life candidate. What I am left with is to vote for the person who will do the least harm. What kind of way is that to run a country? I had a quote on my Google page the other day (yes, I subscribe to that lame-o "quote of the day" gadget) that sums the whole situation up:

"There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president." - Kurt Vonnegut

I would love to care about this election, only I just don't. Not this year.