I Just Don’t Get It

Why is there so much cruelty practiced by religious people who follow Jesus of Nazareth? The shorthand term for these folks in “Christians”. In the name of Jesus, the Son of God, one of the most (if not the most) gentle people who ever lived. Wars and many other forms of violence have been fought in His name. Would He have approved? One saying which was popular late in the last century went by initials: WWJD, standing for What Would Jesus Do. My personal beliefs notwithstanding, why are we so cruel to women seeking abortions? The Catholic bishops in this country seek to bar President Joe Biden (only the second Roman Catholic president) from the sacraments. Would Jesus approve?

Why are they so hostile to LGBTQ people? God made them, too, for reasons we don’t understand. Does the fact that they have sex upset some people? (living in sin, and all that), Do they have nothing better to do than ban trans people from restrooms?

Why do so many pro-life people seem indifferent to the children they “save” once they are born? We can afford tax cuts and breaks for (mostly white male) rich folks, but deny poorer parents family leave, affordable child care, and health insurance, among other things, because we can’t afford them? I realize that education is basically administrative overhead and doesn’t make any money, so we can only spend the bare minimum. And then wonder why children’s test scores are so low?

At the risk of sounding like a socialist, we reward the wrong behaviors and the (mostly) useless pursuits, such as rock stars, college basketball coaches, hedge fund managers, etc. , at the expense of productive endeavors such as first responders, nurses and teachers, among many others.

Most of you have watched tapes of the events at the Capitol on January 6. I know we can’t believe our lyin’ eyes all the time, but was this really typical, harmless tourist activity? If the President at the time really did egg then on, is this treason? Sure seems like it to me. Why is he still walking around free? Since my formal education was in chemistry, rather than political science, there’s a lot I really don’t understand. Who financed all this stuff? Yes, we need an investigation. What is the Grand Old Party so afraid of?

Why not let the people vote? Is it really about election fraud? Does one of our major parties truly sense an existential threat? Maybe some of our founders were right- the masses are asses (or maybe just the colored…). The notion that the People should decide who rules, and how they are governed, rather than some “royals” who qualify merely by birth was a truly revolutionary idea. Why don’t we bring it back?

Again, I’m not qualified to be an expert in government (see formal education, above), but isn’t the Senate somewhat unbalanced? Wyoming, with a population of fewer than 600K people, has the same number of senators as California, whose population is around thirty million. The world’s greatest deliberative body. Does this mean it does nothing? Do we need a filibuster? Or, for that natter, do we need a senate?

Many of us are looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. I refer to folks who haven’t gotten around to being vaccinated. Vaccines developed in record time that are shutting down the virus so effectively are virtually miraculous gifts from God, or science, depending on your poini of view. I am a child of the Fifties who well remembers how the scourge of polio was just about eliminated through the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Today, we worry about the virus coming back through variants, when we have the means to end the whole business. Why is it that “red” states with low vaccination rates are experiencing a resurgence? Does anybody understand cause-and-effect?

I’m sure that people and entities with lots of money are pulling strings to maintain the sttatus quo. What about the rest of us? Are we really a democracy? Were we ever?