Inhumane Humanity

     Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore no one will be held righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
-Romans 3:19-20

     Before I get into it, I would like to explain to you what my mindset is when I blog.  Though you may not know it, I am a very passionate person and there are many issues that I feel passionately about.  I would like to consider myself a vehement defender of these passions, but I realize that I do little more than write a small blog voicing my concerns.  It does make me feel small at times, but it also keeps me determined to further my passions in a way where I might defend them on a much larger scale.  I also don’t like to get into very heated verbal arguments because I prefer the more methodical arguments of writing to the more spontaneous methods of verbal debate.  While I do believe the passion and spontaneity of a verbal debate make for some compelling arguments, I find that the nature of improvisation and lack of time lends itself to bullying tactics and a general strategy of trying to make your opponent lose focus, as opposed to trying to focus on improving your own argument.  I prefer to expound upon ideas brought forward in verbal debates and come back with a more solid argument, hence one of the reasons for the blog.  This is also the reason for my lack of consistency in publishing schedule.  Blog ideas do not always stay on the forefront of my mind, but are brought there by a discussion or from an idea I got while watching a movie or something similar.  Therefore, this blog is somewhat of a collection of my consciousness in the form of my perspective of different events in my life.  I’m not sure where I originally intended to go with this, but I’m getting the sense that it’s somewhere in the direction of if you hear certain ideas or themes repeated either in this blog multiple times, or from something you heard me say in person, don’t dismiss the entry, because there may be a whole new meaning for you to discover.
     I’ll start out by explaining the context of the above quote.  In the most basic literary sense, it’s Saint Paul’s explanation of Old Testament philosophy and its purpose.  He spends the majority of the book of Romans, a letter written to the Christian Church in Rome, trying to bridge the gap between Gentile and Jew.  But like just about everything else in life there are hidden meanings in these words.  For me the hidden meaning is, like most others, a comparison to a different type of law.  Law is, simply put, universal in purpose.  It is there to restrict a certain group of people in hopes of generating a certain societal morality.  The law, however, rarely solves the problems it wishes to correct, but rather opens its society’s eyes to the dissention from the law.  
     I had originally chosen a verse in close geographical proximity to describe my feelings towards my current subject of interest, but had stumbled upon this one which seemed to better elaborate my feelings on the subject of public opinion of criminals.  The original verse I had chosen, Romans 3:23, reads,
     “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
     This is a verse that came to shape some of my earliest and deeply held beliefs.  Almost all of my harshest realizations were that I was no better than the people whom I looked down upon.  The funny thing is that it would not be my own arrogance that would be the catalyst for my journey of self-discovery, but that of those closest to me.  It never seemed wrong when I put someone down, but watching family build their own self-esteem at the expense of others made me realize the error of my ways.  Once I saw the effects such actions had, it was easy for me to realize where I was going wrong.  But my family continued to be a place I could look to for the antithesis of what I wanted to become.  It may sound like I’m giving my family a rather generous verbal bashing, but as the aforementioned verse states, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  I am just as guilty as not only them, but the rest of humanity.  There is a difference, though.  Saint Paul argues that while the only path to salvation is through Christ, we should not become ignorant of the law, lest we become forgetful of the life of sin from which we were all delivered.  While the law can reveal our own sin, it can also hide it.  The original sin is at least derived from deception, and one could argue that it actually was deception.  We humans have become very proficient in the art of deception, be it of others or of ourselves.  One of the most truly annoying habits of more than one of my family members was to point out others’ flaws.  I have more than a few relatives who make a practical hobby of watching news shows and then talking at great lengths about how horrid and morally despicable these figures in the headlines are.  It always rubbed me the wrong way and I could, for the longest time, not figure out why.  As time went on I observed the same habits in many other people around me and in the media.  I finally figured it out while studying World War II more in-depth than I had before.  I was learning more about the build up to the war and the effects World War I and the Treaty of Versailles had.  I was learning a little more about Adolf Hitler’s psyche and his reputation.  Now I’m not saying that what he did wasn’t atrocious, because it was.  I simply noticed that he seemed to be the pinnacle of evil in the minds of these people who would talk endlessly about the misdeeds of others.  Of all the people they despised and berated, he was the worst.  So it only seemed natural for me to figure out why.  Sure, he killed millions, but people seem to identify with issues that affect them directly, and there are a lot more current and living evildoers for people to look down their noses at.  The reason, in fact, was the sheer massiveness of Hitler’s crimes.  I realized that there were varying degrees of chiding when it came to sinners, none of which was ever directed back at any of the chidees themselves.  I guess their devotion to pointing out others’ inequities somehow absolved them of their sins.  Rockers and actors usually got a small scolding for sins such as not being very good to other people or being involved in shady dealings.  I guess ridiculing a foreign accent almost right in front of the ridiculee doesn’t count as not being good to that person; and swearing like a rock star is fine, as long as it’s at your own discretion and not on national TV.  Criminals involved with children usually came next, though the Catholic Clergy seemed to escape criticism.  Up next were murderers, which were my favorite for a while.  Despite following a religion that practices a belief that all sinners have a chance for salvation, my family seems uncannily devoted to the principle of capital punishment.  They have a real propensity for doubting the sincerity of a murderer’s conversion and repentance.  Politicians were always pretty high up too, an area I could elaborate upon but won’t for time’s sake, and their crimes earned them a spot on the family sinner scale, with campaign fraud and global warfare being a one and murder and voicing liberal viewpoints being a ten.  The game breaker?  You guessed it, a conservative (come on, conservative?  That should count for something.) politician who committed mass genocide.  It was only when I studied the epitome of their distaste that I realized why they talked so much about him.  This world, your environment, the people around you, all of it acts like a mirror.  In interacting with it you learn new things about yourself.  These people who commit crimes, whether it be smoking some pot after school or leading a campaign to exterminate the Jewish people, gave others a small view of what humans are capable of.  We can argue the legality of weed later; the point is its illegality is part of the law that governs us all.  When seeing the atrocities that others committed we also see the possibility of any of us doing the same thing.  Some of the comparisons that can be drawn between modern day America and the Third Reich are amazingly close.  Just today I saw Bill O’Reilly hold up Gary Sinise for helping to raise money for the American troops, all the while taking self-righteous potshots at unnamed protestors to the war, indirectly referencing Cindy Sheehan.  What would prompt this man to say such things?  Is it guilt for supporting the war in the first place?  Or an undying loyalty to the government as a result of not being able to think for himself?  Or is it he just doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that all humans, even Americans, can have just as great a disrespect for life as the terrorists that they’re fighting?  The answer lies within each and every one of us.
     Nothing is out of the realm of possibilities, and trying to convince ourselves otherwise is to hinder our own progress.  Upon arriving at a Nazi death camp, General Eisenhower ordered all American troops to march trough the camp and American camera crews to film it.  He was like the master of a disobedient dog, shoving the proverbial nose in shit.  But unlike dogs, we should have the sense to not become complacent in our environment.  For the dog it is instinct that keeps him from repeating mistakes, we should be above that.  We should be ever aware of our past and why it happened as such.  We should Hold Hitler up, not as a way to deflect attention from our own sins or insecurities, but as a monument to the inhumanity of the human race, in hopes that we never experience such loss of life again.
     I often consider the phrase, “inhumane.”  It is generally accepted as a lack of compassion.  But if the word is analyzed, its literal meaning would be uncharacteristic of the human race.  If that is the case, does its literal meaning really coincide with its accepted meaning?  Is it really against our nature to steal, rape, murder, and everything in between, or is a lack of morality one of our defining characteristics?  I do believe the latter, but I don’t believe that this is a dark tale.  Newton’s third law of physics states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Again, principles governing one aspect of our world can be applied to other aspects of existence.  I do believe that this world balances itself out, and that, in the words of glam metal mainstays Poison, every rose has its thorn, only in this case I guess it’d be every thorn has its rose…Whatever.  No one said music had to make sense.  The point is that evil is our birthright, but not necessarily our legacy.  We are born to sin, but it is up to us whether or not we are consumed by it.  We can break free of the chains that hold us down, but not through blind pride.  We can not hope to lead a life of purity simply through the study of others, but by true introspection.  Only by facing the demons of our psychic can we hope to defeat them.  Though it may come at the cost of our peace of mind, we gain something just as valuable.  Remember Newton’s Third Law, nothing of value can be gained without first giving up something of equal value in return.
     I will leave you with a quote from the eccentric philosopher/golf enthusiast, Ty Webb.
     “In one physical model of the universe, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line . . . in the opposite direction.”

P.S. Please don’t take this blog as a slight to my family.  As the group of people you spend most of your life around, family can simultaneously be the source of both your greatest hopes and fears.  They are not perfect, but as this article states, no one is.  They are, after all, my family; and I love them.  Sincerely,

Eric M.

Getting Schooled

     Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.
-Colossians 3:23
     I’m back, and I’m better than ever!  I’m sorry, I can’t avoid the inside wrestling plug, it’s in my veins.  I just had to blog today, but I couldn’t find direction.  I’ve got wrestling on the brain, but I get that out of my system on facebook.  Sidenote: go to the group facebook pro wrestling fans for a good discussion on pro wrestling.  I managed to dig a topic out of the depths of my brains which I had previously committed myself to blogging about but had gotten sidetracked before doing so (surprise, surprise.)  So without further ado, I give you my unholy fury!
     The first job I ever had was in the summer of 2001 as a caddy.  You worked your ass off and if you didn’t, you left on your own.  The next job I had was working in a car shop.  This is another job that taught me the value of good, hard work.  My boss never fired anyone from there because they all pulled at least some weight (He actually did fire a couple of people once, only because his top guy quit and he needed more budget space.)  I held that job from the fall of 2003 to the summer of 2006.  In all those years I have never heard one of my bosses complain extensively about employees’ work ethic.  Near the end of my high school career I started to pay a little more attention to current events.  I have since, especially in the immigration debate, heard many complaints about work ethic and the quality of work.  I heard one small business owner talk about the work ethic of students and of immigrants.  He called students lazy and unmotivated, while praising the immigrants’ work ethic.  I have since heard this argument many times and heard many, deserved and undeserved, attacks on the caliber of students’ work ethic.  This summer I started a job at Subway that gave me a few new insights on the subject.
     First off, I’ll talk about the immigrants.  Keep in mind that we are generalizing.  Generalizations, while not always correct, are not completely unfounded.  Generalizing, making vague assumptions based on experience or popular opinion is not a heinous crime while stereotyping, making long lasting impressions, opinions, or habits based on generalizations, can be extremely derogatory.  Thinking a student might be a bad worker, generalization.  Not hiring that worker because you think all students are lazy, stereotype.  Now I have grown up around immigrants.  My Uncle owned a landscaping company for years and, true to the stereotype, employed a lot of Mexicans.  Most of them were damn hard workers.  My Uncle appreciated the work they did for them and to this day wouldn’t hesitate to help them out.  In my first job as caddy I worked with a lot of Mexicans and they were some of the toughest workers I’ve ever met.  My fellow mechanic and top worker at the shop was Hispanic and he put more work into that shop than my boss ever deserved to get out of him.  I work with a Mexican currently, and she is a hard worker.  Not much with customers, and not the best on punctuality, but a damn good worker.  That being said, there is a valid point that I feel has not been made, these people do this for a living.  I don’t want to come off as arrogant, but it’s going to happen anyways.  A lot of these people either came over or had parents who did.  They don’t have the best start in life, they can only hope to give their children a better chance than they had.  They have a choice between low income jobs with no imaginable success for themselves and a small chance of success for their children in the U.S., or widespread poverty and social injustice in Mexico.  Natural born citizens, frankly, don’t have to face that choice.  Most of us are born into relative privilege and can get by without extensive effort.
     Now I’m not saying we should disregard the immigrant population.  I have felt that the native population has grown ignorant of their plight and afraid to lose their safety buffer, but that’s a topic for a different time.  I’ve worked with a wide variety of students, from high school to college, and seen a varying spectrum of work ethic.  I’ve seen students who bust ass and get no recognition, ones who kiss ass and get a ton of recognition, ones who take a casual approach, and ones who are dedicated to a career.  Ironically, I haven’t seen a student get rewarded for busting ass, but have seen one rewarded for kissing ass.  I’ve heard a million complaints about students not working hard, and to a certain extent it’s true.  Most students have been at least partially removed from their job.  They don’t treat it with a huge deal of concern, but I think there’s a perfectly good reason for this: THEY’RE IN FUCKING SCHOOL!  They have better things to do than focus on some minimum wage job, they’re trying to train for bigger and better things.  If there is one complaint I have about my current job, and believe me there are many more than just one, it’s that they expect their employees to treat it like a career.  They expect employees to be on call 24/7.  They expect them to work every free hour that they have.  They expect them to be working without a real break for eight or more hours at a time.  I wouldn’t have had a problem with this while at my job at the car shop, but there was one difference: THAT WAS A CAREER!  I want to make a suicide/death pact with my fellow employees in the event that any one of us is still employed at Subway five years down the line.  This is not a career; this is a way to get by.  The thing that kills me is how tight these people are.  They will overwork an employee as much as possible, but as soon as that employee hits the 39 hour mark, that’s it.  God forbid you’d pay a hard working employee time and a half.  They will even have employees work at two separate stores.  Because it’s different payrolls, an employee could work well over 40 hours in reality and still be getting paid minimum wage.  They do this and expect employees to give the proverbial 110%.  On top of all that, in the event that you do tolerate this and contribute greatly to the business, you will always still be second to some ass kisser who the boss likes more.  I have heard the, “students can’t work,” argument from my boss and it kills me.  Her students work ten times harder than those not under instruction and they get no recognition.  Not to mention the fact that students have to juggle their schedule with classes and homework, and the fact that little to no regard is given to personal time at my place of work.  If this is any indication of how the rest of the nation treats its students, then it’s no wonder why this country seems to be on a direct route to shit creek with paddles heaved over 10 miles back to cut down on weight.    

Divine Right to Intellect

     But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?  Show me the coin used for paying the tax.”  They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this?  And whose inscription?”
     “Caesar’s,” they replied.
     Then he said to them, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
-Matthew 22:18-21

     Yes, I have a new format.  Seeing as how the Bible is the basis for my most deeply held beliefs, I have decided to use a quote from it to not only relate a sentiment behind my post, but also to testify to those who read it.  I have a lot of things that I have skipped over in the past week.  I would first like to chastise society as a whole for demeaning certain days and stripping them of their intentions, but seen as how I let another MLK day slip by for the second year in a row I can’t do so in good conscience.  I also wanted to post about New Year’s resolutions, but I decided to break my procrastination resolution less than a day into the new year.  And now I’m about to break my resolution of not having excessively long posts.  Before I really get into it, I did celebrate the birthday of one of my favorite American philosophers, Ben Franklin, by studying his life and some of his works.  I did not, however, finish the post I had planned for his January 17 birthday.  It’s gonna be a long year.
     Anyways, today I’d like to muse on divine right.  I know that it is a belief that is not officially held in any modern government, save for the celebrity positions within the British Royal Family, but the principle still exists.  I know that in the church I grew up in it was a very common ideal.  To this day it is not uncommon for me to hear my parents use the excuse of, “If God didn’t want the government to exist as it is it wouldn’t,” to dodge hard political debate.  While I do believe that God’s will is forever enduring, I don’t believe that is an excuse for the lack of involvement in your government’s decisions.  For one thing, government has changed significantly since the times of the Roman Empire.  I believe that God expects us to give the government what it deserves, but not necessarily what it demands.  It is also worth mentioning that in the aforementioned verse Jesus might not have been advocating Caesar, but rather indirectly suggesting that rather than pay taxes to a corrupt government the Jewish people give up all Roman currency and worldly possessions and focus more intently on God.  Indeed, it would seem that theology is becoming a lost art in a world of increasing wealth.  But the funny thing about my parents’ argument is that is used in defense of policies which they agree with.  They most commonly use it to dismiss any ideas which would oppose their policies.  I think it will be very interesting to see what they think of divine right when politicians they don’t agree with take office.  The point is that divine right is a way of protecting ignorance.  It was first used in Christianity by King Saul, the first king of Israel.  In a time long after Moses and the Israeli resettlement of Canaan, Samuel was the spiritual leader of the Israelites.  As chronicled in 1 Samuel, he appointed his two sons to be judges of Israel as he grew older.  But his sons were corrupt and Israel asked for a king like the other nations had.  Through Samuel God warned them that by doing so they were forsaking him as their king.  He warned them that their king would tax, conscript, and indenture them and that when they asked God to help them he would not heed their calls.  They agreed, and God chose Saul as their King.  He was anointed, and so began the legacy of divine right.  After the reign of King Solomon Israel split into two kingdoms; Israel, which was eventually captured by Assyria, and Judah, which was captured by Babylon.  In both cases the Jewish people were subject to harsh treatment.  They were initially slaves in both cases, but were released from slavery by the Persian King Cyrus.  The Jews have since never served under an earthly king.  They rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem and remained a factor in political proceedings in the region ever since.  Jerusalem was under Roman rule at the time of Jesus Christ.  During the Middle Ages divine right was used as a means of keeping people under the control of their king.  If divine right was a commonly held belief in a kingdom, than any dissention from the king was blasphemy.  In today’s conservative social circles it takes on much the same form.  The Christian part of these circles silences any dissention by appealing to the theory of divine right, and most commonly Saint Paul’s writings on the subject.  Paul argued that corrupt governments were God’s way of punishing sinners, though many argue on the true intentions of his writings.  Indeed, Paul’s writings are the basis for some of the most controversial dogma present in organized religion today.  Personally, I believe government is to be respected, but only if that respect is well deserved.  I believe that government exists to serve the people, not the other way around.  I think that distinction is becoming more and more blurred as our government use an increasing amount of scare tactics and propaganda to bolster public support for hidden agendas.  I believe big brother and an ever expanding economy are leading to the downfall of America as it exists in the Declaration of Independence.  But most importantly I believe that we have the right to question our government.  I believe that everything happens for a reason.  God allows corrupt government to exist, just as he allows our brains to function in a way as to not be complete pawns to it.  If God allows corrupt leaders to lead, then he also allows intellectuals with good intentions to question.  I also believe that God takes a more passive role in today’s society.  He no longer works through plagues and floods, but through people who have the integrity to question.  If we willingly allow ourselves to be at the mercy of a corrupt government then, like the Israelites, we have no one to blame but ourselves.  I’ll leave you with this thought, “I know why you’re here, Neo.  I know what you’ve been doing, why you hardly sleep.  You’re looking for him.  I know because I was once looking for the same thing.  And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him.  I was looking for an answer.  It’s the question that drives us.”-Trinity, from The Matrix.

Red with Envy

Hello, and welcome to the Eric News Network, bringing you all the news and completely biased commentary from my haze of a life.  In case you’ve been out of the loop, the ENN has been inactive for the past few months because of unforeseen changes in my drinking pattern, which has gone from casual social to kill the pain before it kills you.  OK, maybe it’s not that bad, but I can’t remember anything that happened before I woke up from my last binge so how would I know?  Anyways, I’m reporting to you today from the major cause of my recent spike in B.A.L., my job.  You’ve probably heard all the gruesome details so for those few of you who are uninformed, I’ll sum it up in one short sentence: My bosses suck major donkey dick.  You see, Pat, if your yearly salary triples that of a broke-ass college student you have no right to talk to him about money problems.  Thanks, John [flicks off security camera].  Now, I didn’t do that last part just to piss off my boss, should she happen to watch the security tapes.  I did it to prove a point.  Should my boss happen to see that, she would be very pissed off.  The reason why is more elusive than you would think.  It’s not because I’m being disrespectful, it’s because she’s scared.  You see, in this country money=power.  She has become very comfortable with this equation and enjoys her power over those who have less money than she, i.e. her employees.  If you don’t believe me, just take a look at me.  I hate kissing fuckhead customers’ asses all day long for her, but I do it because I need her money.  She, therefore, has control of my actions because of this.  The only problem is that I realize and lament this.  My lament is embodied in my attitude of casual hate towards the people I view as the cause of it.  Most people in my same position casually accept their fate, but I resist it.  I refuse to completely give in, and this shatters my boss’ illusion of complete control.  That is why she is angry.  My point is that money is nothing but control.  In theory, it is a way of motivation, a way to keep all the gears of a successful society running as they should.  But those who realize this learn how to manipulate it, and class separation is born.  You have the wealthy, using their wealth as a piece of cheese at the end of a stick that’s tied to the back of the mouse that is the rest of society.  The middle class tries as it might to get the cheese, but it’s always out of reach.  The lower class tries, but realizes the setbacks that prevent them from actually getting the cheese.  They more or less strive for the hope that their children might chase the cheese in the middle class and maybe, just maybe, their grandchildren or their children just might get that elusive piece of cheese.  Then you have the scattered people such as myself who say fuck that cheese, there must be some better smelling cheese out there.  Now you may say that’s America for ya, but I say no, that reminds me of somewhere else.  Now this place is really taboo in American culture, and has been since the 40’s.  It had another system of economy that was run by enticing its citizens with promises.  There was a slight difference.  In America we motivate our citizens with the prospect of becoming rich, what I like to call greatness of one.  In this place they stressed the greatness of the country, or motherland.  Their economy was controlled by the elite, aristocrats and corrupt government officials.  There was hope of becoming one of these elite, but only by becoming a particularly impressive pawn, and even then you’d be nothing more than a very rich pawn.  Here in America, you can’t get rich without bringing in revenue for the big guys.  There’s this little something called taxes, ring a bell?  And we all know the more you make the more Uncle Sam makes.  No matter how much money you make America’s wealth increases proportionately.  In this other place, there was massive class separation.  There were the aforementioned elite, and under them were their rich pawns who aspired to become one of them.  Then there were the laborers, who were born into a world of toiling for their well being and could only hope to provide a better life for their children than their ancestors did for them.  Now there are a lot of reasons for this union’s collapse.  One could argue it was their abuse of power or their crumbling economy, or a combination of these and a number of other problems could all explain its downfall, but one thing’s for sure, their inability to hide their intentions from everyone and America’s uncanny ability to do so has probably left this union’s remaining supporters red with envy.  Remember, freedom is a privilege, and with privilege comes responsibility.  Sanity, on the other hand, is a gift, don’t squander it.