Created January 28th, 2021
The U.S. Congress acts as if ethics issues ought to be dealt with only by means of establishing norms via “ethics pledges”. These are promises, not legally binding. Why would we want issues of ethics to be based on promises? Obviously, anyone whose ethics is awry is going to make false promises.
Ethics is not just underperforming its role in government, it’s everywhere.
The 600+ U.S. billionaires gaining $1.1 trillion during Covid is emblematic. In an ethical society, a day or two would go by and the parties involved would do the right thing.
That seems like a joke today. But that’s just because of how jaded and accepting we have all become as we slid down from civility to emotional anarchy.
United. The United States of America.
We ain’t gonna get back there without reset of ethics for all of us.
It’s so simple, we were told about being Good all the years of growing up, all we have to do now, is to be it.
In ancient Greece, there was a saying: “All the Hellenes (Greeks) know what is right, but only the Spartans do it.”
They knew 2000 years ago the right way to be, and they knew it could be achieved by a nation. The Spartans were living sinless lives to a degree which seemed impossible to the rest of the country.
If the Spartans could do it 2000 years ago without all the advances since then, we can do it now, and prove it in the next four years.
Ethics is the center of this storm.
Ethics is a branch of Philosophy.
It’s unfortunate that we’re not a philosophical society today here in the U.S. or in most other places, such as, for example, the ancient Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Iranian, Arab and Roman societies, or the society of the West as it was during the early Christian Era and during the Renaissance and its later scientific Enlightenment phase.
Philosophy dropped off the map in the 20th Century as the materialist wing of science essentially took over science. The great master physicists were all old school and open to the idea of God or the equivalent, but the mass of scientists, employed mostly by military and industry (not that there’s anything wrong with that), leaned all the way over to asserting the non-existence of God, and that made quite an impression in that Century, given as that science was the miracle-doer now. The mob always follows the miracles, as Jesus taught.
We need to bring philosophy back.
This is a piece of what is really needed which is to actually have a retraining of all of us.
We need videos and articles online and in all media which train us in philosophy, values, ethics. We must have foundations. Trying to teach ethics before teaching self-knowledge is trying to build a house starting from the second floor. We need more philosophical programming and content on television and online. Some can be funny, some can be fiction or docudrama, interview, interactive, reality news, let a thousand flowers bloom.
In the immediate short term, the congress should set a good example by first setting laws governing its own ethics, and then a law on citizen ethics. It cannot imperil the Constitution nor individual freedom, except insofar as psychological or physical harm must not be allowed one person to another. The laws as they stand allow bullying and worse. A lot of the insurrectionists are not being charged because “they weren’t bad enough”. Under a new Citizen Ethics Act they would all be charged.
America must decide where the lines ought righteously to be drawn.
The tide of new legislation needed should make congress happy and excited.
The best course to American success is to forget about party.
Let it exist in the background. Start each meeting with a fresh slate, no going in agenda. Learn, think, discuss, and reach consensus, then move on.
Congress is going to have to step up production. We are re-starting everything, without changing the Constitution. Without selling out the Founders, and Lincoln. But otherwise it’s a fresh start. That last movie was no good, don’t want any more of that, change the channel for good.
Filibusters are a great drag on production. Moving more slowly back to being a peaceful, cooperative, polite, friendly society is going to require a number of important new laws. The world is at stake. The world has never been so imperiled before. It would be mass insanity to tolerate delays in setting things straight because of last-movie’s party game.
Congress please produce the best laws possible but do not make unnecessary delays. Everyone is listening in and watching so we can all yell hurry up if we have to. When we hear the same thing said and no more new things being said, we are going to call an audible.
Thank you Congress!
Best to us all,
Bill
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