Reply #20: You nailed it when you said 'cowardice'. [View All]

[TahitiNut]

It's a theme these days. The illusion of invulnerability was shattered for many on 9/11, and with it went the meme of 'home of the brave.'

Courage cannot coexist with a sense of invulnerability. Superman was not courageous. Courage is only based on a willingness to sacrifice one's tangible well-being, one's very life, for a matter of conscience: "Doing the Right Thing."

CoWardice is measured by the abdication of ethics and morality in the face of a perceived threat - and the degree to which one seeks protection from such a perceived threat. As we seek to protect the trivial (our material possessions or social esteem) while abdicating the protection of values, morals, principles, and ethics, we demonstrate coWardice.

Perhaps nothing characterizes today's Amerika with more thematic accuracy than coWardice - coWardice of every stripe.

• We value our heartless fast foods more than feeding the hungry.
• We value our boob tube 'reality' more than critical thinking.
• We value our gas guzzlers more than the lives of human beings all over the planet.
• We value plastic religiosity above moral rectitude and humility.
• We demean the true sacrifices of those who've been awarded Purple Hearts.
• We demean those who'd be their brother's keeper as 'bleeding heart liberals' and then call ourselves "Christians."
• We devalue those who provide hands-on care for our children and elderly.
• We devalue labor and celebrate self-indulgence.

Even when we're the wealthiest and least vulnerable people on the entire planet, we create and wield the greatest military superiority in the history of the world to feed our insatiable appetites for unbounded power and material convenience ... and then politically elevate those who model this behavior most egregiously!

We make the worst playground bullies (archetypes for cowardice) seem almost heroic in comparison.

Then, when we feel a slight pang of our atrophied conscience, we blame Osama, Saddam, or Clinton's penis - anything but ourselves.