when we think about ethical concerns, that fleeting second,
we think of ethical concerns to be of one person being
concerned with ethics…the individual, not more then one person,
nor about a group or society or even the state…one person…
but ethical concerns are not just about one person, but ethical concerns
flow, or should flow, through all facets of society, all aspects of society…
from the one, a single person,
to the few, a family,
to some, a group or a small system
to most, a society or a state…
to all, both individually and collectively…
from the flawed ethics practice in the family, do as I say, not as I do,
while admonishing the child about not smoking or drinking, while
smoking or drinking…that type of double standard is common in the
family, in fact, I would suggest that double standard is more the rule then
the exception…
and the state, allowing policemen to violate and break rules it demands
the citizens follow…do as I say, not as I do…
to big business, who routinely violates the laws and gets as slap on the wrist,
a minor fine which only encourages big business to simply break the rules and
then pays minor fines for it…
we don’t have an technological problem in this country, we have an ethical
problem…from the individual, to the family, to big corporations, to the state,
government/ police/ courts… of which violates ethical concerns all the time…
the state believes itself above the laws it creates for it citizens…
the state holds for itself actions and possibilities it won’t allow to private citizens…
capital punishment, taxes, printing of money, relationships to foreign states,
trade deals… in which case, that means the state must hold itself to higher
standards then it holds the average citizen… if the state claims greater
obligations and responsibilities, then it must hold itself to a higher standard…
ethical concerns must run throughout the entire society, not just about the one,
the individual man…it must run through the entire judicial system, from the courts
to the police to the prisons to the prosecution aspect, the DA’s and the like…
ethical concerns must run throughout the entire political system, from
the small towns to the largest political entities, the nation…and everything
in between…
in fact, I hold that the single greatest concern for political entities is
for the ethical concern, before collecting taxes, or policing the state or
picking up garbage or paving sidewalks… the end all, be all of the political
state must be in ethical concerns… what is the ethical course of action?
and why that course before another…
and of course this applies to the biggest culprit of the violating of
ethical concerns, big business/big corporations…until we get business
to be as concerned, in fact more concerned with the ethical instead of
profits, we shall continue to have the dire consequences with big business
violating the letter and spirit of the law… until we fix that, we shall have
serious problems in America…
so let me give you an ethical situation that involves big business and
the state…
businesses like wal-mart and restaurants and even the grocery store I work at,
where they pay the employee’s so little that many employee’s are forced to
get government assistances, be it food stamps or WIC programs… in other words,
the government is subsidizing big business when it covers the companies employees
wages to allow them to survive…if we force Wal-mart for example to pay its
employee’s a living wage, then they don’t have to go on government programs to
survive… remove this entitlement programs from big business and force them to
pay wages that allows people to survive instead of making them take government
assistances… the ethical thing to do is pay people what they are worth…
that would be the ethical thing to do… but it is easier for big business to
let the government cover the cost of paying its employee’s a living wage…
and remember, vast number of corporations don’t pay taxes at all, so we
are subsiding them twice, one in not paying taxes and a second time
in having government covering the difference between the starvation
wages companies pay and the government paying the difference to get
the people to at least sort of survival wages…
if we put ethical concerns before, before such baubles as profits, then
we can improve the lives of millions of people…
the question isn’t, do you have ethical concerns… because the vast number
of people don’t even give a second thought about ethical concerns,
but the question becomes, do you become aware of ethical concerns?
does ethics now play a role in your life? or do you just go through life,
oblivious? now most people will shout, Me, what me? I am as ethical
as the next guy… and that is my point, you don’t have any idea if the next
guy is even ethical… how would you know? you haven’t given ethical considerations
two seconds of thought in your life…most people just attempt to escape even
considering ethical considerations because they realize in their heart, that
they wouldn’t be able to come out a hero or play the good guy if they
really, really understood what ethical concerns are…
in other words, if they were honest with themselves about being ethical,
they would realize they have spend seconds thinking about it and secondly,
if people actually understood what ethics were, they wouldn’t be able to
think so highly of themselves… we are able to hold such grand visions of ourselves
simply because we don’t think about our actions and words in terms of ethics…
we just assume we are good people and leave it at that… an in depth
look at our actions and words will reveal that 99% of people aren’t even
close to being ethical or moral…we lie and steal and cheat and we
justify it to ourselves with platitudes about how other people cheat, lie, steal
so why shouldn’t we cheat, lie, steal? or how we “deserve” something better,
so that allows us to lie, cheat, steal? we can find justifications in any action
we take, no matter how vile an action…
incest, we can find justifications for that,
cannibalism, we can find a justification for that
having an affair, we can find a justification for that
every single action we can take we can find a justification for that action
when are you going to be honest, honest with who you are?
are you an honest person? how would you know? you haven’t given that
a second thought in your life…
Kropotkin