Hugh Hollowell

I am fairly apolitical, so fear not, gentle reader; you do not have to worry about this becoming a political rant blog. That is just not how I roll. However, even though I am on a low information diet, I still am inundated with the propaganda from the upcoming Presidential election here in the US.

Have you ever noticed that whenever politicians talk about moral issues, they inevitably mean homosexuality or abortion? As if those were the only moral issues out there.

I mean, really. Yesterday I read a great blogpost about the genocide in Darfur; it was cogent, well thought out and for the first time, I fully understood the root causes of the problem. So of course some ass hat comes along and leaves a comment to the effect that Darfur is nothing compared to the genocide in America because of abortion. Never mind that the post was not about abortion. Or America. No sirree, that did not slow down this guy; he was going to get his point across.

Do not get me wrong:

I think no rational person thinks abortion is a good thing. Even the most adamant pro-choice people I know think abortion is regrettable. I would prefer that abortions did not happen, but I also wish there was not lying, cheating or stealing on the planet, either. And, I realize that if I want to say I am pro-life, I had better be ready to adopt a kid or help out some unmarried mothers. If you just point out what is wrong but do nothing to fix it, you are just bitching.

You know what?

Every day, 18,000 children die from malnutrition. Every day, 850 million people go to bed hungry. It is not like they are dying of AIDS or some other incurable disease. We have the food. We have the stuff to fix the problem, yet we do not, so children die. That might be a moral issue.

Or how about this:

We have a death penalty in this country; almost every person who is for it cites the Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye“. People must pick the parts of the Bible they like and ignore what they do not, because the Bible also prescribes the death penalty for bestiality (Exodus 22:19); adultery (Leviticus 20:10); homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5), prostitution (Leviticus 21:9) and rape (Deuteronomy 22:24-25). Hmmm, some of those might hit close to home.

Since 1973, 124 people were convicted, went through the appeal process and went to death row, only to be released because they were later proven innocent. 124. And those are the ones we found out about before it was too late. On average, they spent 9 years in prison for something they did not do. Here is a list of people who died at the hands of the state, yet later strong evidence turned up proving their innocence. Ooops.

Would it be hard to say we can only use the death penalty on the basis of DNA evidence? We have the technology. Is not preventing people from dieing wrongly at the hands of the state that is supposed to protect them a moral issue?

The list continues…

• The Homeless
• Education
• Health care
• The aftermath of Katrina
• The environment
• Sending our children to die in a foreign land so our oil supplies are protected
• The Sudanese Refugees
• The plight of the Iraqis now that we have “helped” them.

Oh yes, and maybe while we are at it, we could talk about the morality of allowing 100,000 people a year to die in Darfur at the hands of their own government. If this was happening in a place where the victim’s skin was white there is no way we would put up with this. If you doubt it, ask yourself if this would be allowed in Poland or Germany or France. Nope, the international community would put a stop to it in a heartbeat. But Darfur is over in Africa, so we do not have to worry or even think about those 400,000 people who have died.

Morality is about being Moral, not just about homosexuality or abortion.