I know this is what you want to hear;) Actually, my guess is that only a small number of us really enjoys this subject. For many it makes them uncomfortable, either because it disturbs the comfort zone of their walls or for those of the other side of the spectrum- because it threatens to place more boundaries than they are comfortable recognizing.
So adventure on in the discussion at your own risk. I enjoy these abstractions until I, too, have some discomfort at having to come into line in order to not become an empty talker.
We all have our comfort levels.
So here is a closer look at some of my contentions.
“Now why is that an important distinction? It is higher moral ground.”
What sets higher moral ground apart from a relative type of moral ground? The higher one reaches in aspirations and ideals of doing what is truly right towards ones fellow man in ones ethics, the more one is seeking to find a universal truth in a standard. Our problems often begin when we take smaller areas that we have found to be good or right in certain circumstances and try to extrapolate those out into the larger scene of the universally applied.
That is when we get dangerously rigid. We often lose our place with the moral ground in that case, just from becoming blinded by our own inability to see the whole picture. That is why the High Moral Ground is so difficult for us to keep.
I do believe that is what happened in our use of war to right wrongs -not only in the case of Iraq, but in all such cases.
We have come to a place in our society where large numbers of people see government as the standard for high moral ground. Despite the fact that it continually disappoints them in this respect. They make it god and then rail against that god. It was supposed to save them, to provide for them, to comfort them…. it is supposed to “be there” for them.
Governments can’t take that sort of high moral ground, and I will tell you why. They can’t because it is just indicative of us trying to shirk our personal responsibility for that particular moral role. We forgot something, though: we are the government… and those who are in power are only our representatives, and worse, are only faulty humans like ourselves. And worse than that -yet, the more we lade them with prestige and control the less likely they are to live up to it.
I came across an interesting quote the other day… An Iraqi woman was bemoaning the worry that with America caught up with Katrina-caused needs we “wouldn’t rebuild Iraq” . Ok. I see right there a problem in what we thought and how we represented ourselves. The Bible warns us to say “If God is willing we will do this or that”. This is very opposed to the American can-do attitude, I realize… but isn’t this just the lesson in these Hurricanes? That despite our best intentions, all our resources and powers, – sometimes the forces of nature, the different obstacles out there, are just more than we can surmount at times? Despite our best intentions?
I’m sure the Iraqi woman was quoted as a vehicle for getting the question on the table. But where is the idea that Iraqis have a responsibility to build a viable country for themselves? On an older BBC news article comments section, an Egyptian says this:
“BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | Iraq funding: Enough for reconstruction?
“The Iraqi people should sue and seek compensation from the US for the vast death toll of innocent Iraqi soldiers and civilians as well as infrastructure destruction.”
America is not the world’s God and is not the world’s Savior. What America is, is a nation that believes in the betterment of the world through the opportunities of freedom.
We are being sorely tested on whether that belief, especially when divorced from faith in God, has merit.
The truth is that being able to offer help is a privilege as much as taking up the offer. And privileges should never…never… be taken for granted.