Another spark Date Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 02:35 PM PST Topic Rant I think some of the places that we fall down when gauging this "war on terrorism" is when we try to decide what we think in terms of what we feel. Are the figureheads "good" or "evil"? Are other countries "against us"? What or who is "unpatriotic"? Do we have the "right" to "invade"? These are all emotional feelings, not logical ideas, yet they are debated as some sort of fact. This is foolish, or ignorant to use a Buddhist idea, and allows us to avoid the real facts and real questions that would allow us to talk and think about it rationally. When we are faced with something that is both a very emotional issue and a very rational issue, we are often, at least at first, overwhelmed in our thinking by our feeling. If we allow it to continue, we can accidentally allow ourselves to think that what we feel is more real that what we know. I'd like to give a few examples here to make this more clear: Just because you love someone doesn't mean that you think they are good for you. Just because you want a new car doesn't mean you can afford one. Just because you don't want to get up doesn't mean that you think it would be a good idea to stay in bed all day. See what I mean? What we feel (love) and what we think (that s/he isn't a healthy person for you to be involved with) don't always match. Are the figureheads "good" or "evil"? Even the worst sociopath does good deeds and every saint has done something less than praiseworthy. Even the most power-hungry can be kind to others. Even the most timid can fight back. There is no "good" or "evil" when it comes to people. There are just circumstances that interact with intentions, time, energy, and resources. When they are long dead and time has given people generations to see that total sum of the impact they made on the world, then we can, to a degree, judge if they stayed true to their beliefs or not. That is about as far as we can ever delineate "good" or "evil". Are other countries "against us"? Who is "Us"? What do they have to be "against"? Are "they" "against" the individual people, the separate ideologies of the various groups of people, the policies of the government, or the actions of the government? Are "they" "against" the propaganda of the government, the individual people, or the groups of people? We are not a homogenous country anymore than these other countries are. People migrate, get conquered, get ejected from their home country and have to settle somewhere, or just travel for fun and education. Many of the people that live here don't like the government, not just the people in the government but rather the style of government. Many of the people that live inside the borders of "America" aren't citizens either by choice, by circumstance, or by law (illegal "aliens", convicts, legal aliens that are waiting to go somewhere else, Native Americans, Eskimos, Aleuts, Hawaiians, etc. this list is actually huge). Are they part of "us"? What does "Against" really mean? Does it mean that these other countries would bomb us, not trade with us, not allow us in their borders, or speak out about our method of government, social policies, or methods of living? Does it mean that they won't throw all their resources behind any action that we choose to do, that they try to give us advice, or tell us what happened to them when they tried it? If we can't say who "us" is and we don't know what "against" means, then we can't answer the question. What or who is "unpatriotic"? What is "patriotism"? Is it joining the military, voting, signing petitions so that things can go to a vote, buying "American"? Is it actively participating in the political process? Is it working hard to achieve the "American dream"? What is "unpatriotic"? Is it unpatriotic to oppose war from which you don't profit? Is it unpatriotic to speak out against policies with which you disagree? Is it unpatriotic to protest? If we cant say what makes us a patriot then how can we decide what is unpatriotic? Do we have the "right" to "invade"? This is a very tricky one as the ideas carry so many connotations. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to vote, the right to pursue happiness. But, do we have the right to kill, to bomb and destroy thousands of homes, to assassinate, or to force "our" worldview on some other country and all the people that live there? What does it mean to "invade"? Has no one asked us to go in to this other country? Would a minority be enough to change it from an "invasion" to an "invitation"? I have avoided the emotional words "war on terrorism" because I am not talking about propaganda here. I am talking about the everyday citizen (person that is alive and conscious of the world around them and able to differentiate between pain and pleasure) and how we/they are trying to think about this huge, garbled, issue. I am not trying to change anyone's opinions about anything, gain better understanding of anyone nor asking them to better understand others. I am writing this because I am unclear about these concepts/emotional words and what they actually mean. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=499