Ethics in a cold world

[Mizmoon]

Do you ever feel like the last ethical person left in the world? I do ... especially right now. Which to take ... the easy way to my life's goals, or the right way? To take the easy way means promoting an organization known for lying, cheating, and hurting people. To take the hard road means uncertainty that I will ever achieve my dream.

It's hard to stick to your ethics when it seems like all the world is corrupt and dark. I could really use some moral support right now.

[Fenris]

1. Welcome to the moral minority, dear.

We exist in spite of the wretchedness that surrounds us.

[BensMom]

2. karma - nuff said

[Gothic Sponge]

3. The world is corrupt and dark....

I think many of us here feel like stars shining in that dark.

[Mizmoon]

4. Love the avatar

Old Star Trek rules. Maybe I should envision Kirk making some hammy yet semi-inspiring speech about doing the right thing.

[Gothic Sponge]

5. Hehe

Don't forget to include plenty of those famous Shatner pauses.

[DustMolecule]

6. Always strive to do what you 'know in your heart' is

'the right thing'. Truly, you will never regret it...you have to live with yourself for the rest of your life, you know. Make sure you 'like' the person you are making of yourself.

[The Traveler]

7. Courage

"Courage is just the realization that something else is more important than your fear." -- Ambrose Redmoon

Bear with me. All this relates to your issue, for you mention fear of uncertainty. (It is also my issue.)

They seek to make us afraid, so that we will surrender to them more of our freedom. I, from the persepective of 48 years, know we are less free, and enjoy less dignity, than we expected when I was a child. Now, to interview for employment, I have to pee in a cup. Now I have to expose my credit history (and the sad story of failed marriages) whenever I seek a job. Now, I am told I have no right to privacy. Flashback now to 1968, and face my father Charles, an employee of the Air Force, a WWII veteran, a grieving Kennedy Democrat. Try to explain this to him, and he will not argue about the right to privacy. He will simply punch you in the nose. "Piss tests? No right to privacy?" he will growl. "What are you? Some kind of goddam commie?"

And when you pick your ass up off the floor he will tell you how he bled so books and people would not be burned, so that a person's right to privacy be preserved, so that the weak may not be ground neath the heels of the strong. He will tell you how he gently prodded (OK it was Machiavellian manipulation but he meant well) his only son into serving the purpose of national defense, believing he was furthering that purpose. Were he alive today, I think he would be urging me to revolt.

America, I feel, is lost. Gone. A memory. And only because common people have lost that courage which once dazzled the world. Now, we are told we might have to postpone our proudest tradition ... the election of the President ... because we are scared the bad men might hurts us ... and now we listen to the notion, rather than immediately riding the perpetrators of these abmoninable suggestions out of town tarred and feathered upon a rail and baring our behinds to those same bad men in a rude collegiate gesture of defiance. And that, in the final analysis, is all our leaders and the followers of Bin Laden deserve ... along with jeers and the rude suggestion that they kiss our collective asses.

We all have fears, these days ... legitimate fears, like fears about providing for ourselves and our children. I feel ya ... but do not yield. Everytime one of us surrenders a piece of our souls to the system, the motherf****r gets heavier.

Wanna fight W. and his ghoulish gang? Remember always there is something more important than your fear, and trust in God. "He who fears to lose his life shall lose it. He who fears not shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." Be afraid, pray, do the right thing ANYWAY. Run a red light in honor of your Higher Power. It is AMAZING what happens. Do not believe God is on their side. Christ was never an advocate of capitalism, much less Fascism, and his message is not one of judgment but of redemption and empowerment. Believe rather in yourself. Believe you know how and who to love. Believe you know how to live. Believe God applauds the choices you know to be your most honest and most loving. He is on YOUR side, and it doesn't matter if you know that or not. It doesn't matter if you believe in Him because He believes in YOU.

Be true to the content of your heart. You know what to do. Believe in your own strength, your own wisdom, your own God-given ability to survive and triumph even if this current situation doesn't play out for you.

And remember. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good folk to do nothing. Conversely, every time one of us does the right thing evil is set back a notch. Do the right thing.

And if ya don't and come to regret it, know we have all been there, too. Chances are, you'll get another chance to take your stand. Like, about every other day.

And why did I say all this to you? Because I, in a similar situation, am faced with the same choices. I tell you what I need to hear myself.

Blessed be, friend, whatever you decide.

[LearnedHand]

8. Well said, robg!

Beautiful! Couldn't have found better words to explain it if I'd tried all day.

I was trying to explain to my students just today why plagiarism -- which isn't exactly a crime -- is nevertheless a really stupid choice to make. I told them it's because if you choose to plagiarize, you say something about the content of YOUR OWN character: that you would do ANYTHING just to win. (Um, does that sound familiar?)

I don't know whether many of these people give a rat's ass about the content of their characters, but I wanted them to THINK about just what you, robg, were saying: that making the right choice does something on your own inside.

[The Traveler]

9. Plagiarism is sad

It means they have found in themselves nothing at all to say.

Or .... that they are trying to save their energy for their own life purposes and do not realize yet how what you are trying to teach them serves those purposes.

They are children. You must show them by sharing your own life how literature and philosphy can help them, and also that they must find their own voice.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. "We must become the change we want to see" - Mahatma Gandhi

Matthew 25:34-40

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.