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Has Reason Gone Right Out the Window?

By Thomas Craig

Real Estate Agent with KW at the Parks 651506396

May 30, 2014 04:29 AM

I am a prisoner of current events. I find myself constantly reading about things happening all around us. On one hand I find it fascinating…but there is a part of me that knows that “knowing” what is going on around me is not good for my mental health.

I blame my high school teacher, Mr. Bailey. It’s all his fault. I took two years of an elective class called Current Events. There was no textbook…you just had to read sections of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Monday through Friday; plus the weekly editions of Time Magazine and Newsweek. He’d pick a topic each day, and you had to be prepared to debate the selected topic. What made it extremely interesting was you didn’t get to pick which side of the argument you were on…he’d pick it for you.

I loved that class. He would pull and pry things out of you that you didn’t even know were inside you. What I loved the most was he wouldn’t take sides. He would intellectually spar with you, asking you probing questions, and then point out the intellectual dishonestly of your position. How could you feel a certain way, when you just said a minute ago you said the opposite? His class should have been called Critical Thinking.

I find myself reading an article and dissecting the information as if Mr. Bailey was still standing at the front of the class. And therein is the problem.

What the hell is going on in the world?

Seriously…what the hell are people thinking? Was all rational thought transported to the moon when we sent men to the moon in the 60’s?

How could our veteran’s, in need of medical attention, be denied treatment? How could administrators make up fake lists and tell someone in pain that they will be called when their name came to the top of a list that didn’t really exist? How does some government official do that to a fellow citizen so he can make a quota and therefore, earn a bonus?

How could an American soldier, who took a wrong turn on a dusty Texas road and ended up in Mexico, still be held in a Mexican jail for the past two months? I realize that it is tad more complicated than that since he had firearms in his car…but everyone involved says this isn’t right…yet he remains rotting in jail. And as he sits there, hundreds of illegal aliens cross our boarder each and every day carrying who knows what with them!

How could a father in Pakistan pick up a rock outside a courthouse and hurl it in the direction of his daughter? What was her horrible offence? She simply wanted to marry someone different than the man selected by her family. The father was joined by other family members and they were successful in stoning the two month pregnant woman to death.

How could a court in Sudan sentence a woman to 100 lashes and then death because she is Christian? The court in its infinite wisdom and mercy was waiting until after the woman delivered her second child. She delivered the baby just a few days ago. There is a world-wide movement to spare this woman’s life. We shall see if sanity will prevail. The court said that simply because she was born in Sudan, she was automatically a Muslim… even though she has been a practicing Christian all her life.

Sadly, I could go on with this madness…and so could many of you. These things simply defy logic, yet they happen every day. Our world seems to be a real life Alice in Wonderland where up is down, and down is up.

I like the following quote because I think it sums up the conflict within all of us who look out window of life and see man’s cruelty at work.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. E.B. White

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Mike Frazier

Carousel Realty of Dyer County - Dyersburg, TN

Northwest Tennessee Realtor

Thomas, all the bad news could really depress a guy if we let it

May 31, 2014 01:28 AM

Thomas Craig

KW at the Parks - Orlando, FL

Isn't that the truth, Mike!

Jun 01, 2014 11:16 AM

Thomas McCombs

Century 21 HomeStar - Akron, OH

Nice job of writing, Thomas. You are spotlighting an issue that has been plaguing mankind since the beginning of time.

Just for perspective, the situations you included are no different now than they have been, it's just that we are hearing more about them now.

Imagine what the outcry would have been had Facebook of Twitter been in existence during the Spanish Inquisition. Or when the Romans were sending their prisoners to the arenas.

Or when Idi Armin (sp?) was devastating his own country of Uganda.

Or in our own civil war, or when we were removing the native Americans from their homelands. etc, etc . . .

Jun 15, 2014 01:15 AM

Thomas, you are right...perspective certainly adds some rationality to current events, but you do ending up scratching your head sometimes. Tom

Jun 15, 2014 07:41 AM

Michael J. Perry

KW Elite - Lancaster, PA

Lancaster, PA Relo Specialist

Almost two years later, what do you think of the world today ???

Mar 15, 2016 12:15 PM

Thomas Craig

Orlando, FL

Mike,

You raised an interesting question. It startled me to be queried about something I wrote two years ago, and I how I felt about the state of the world today. First, I had to go back and read what I wrote…since it had long since vaporized in my mind. So, I went back and read it, and studied it, and gave it a good night’s sleep to ponder my answer to you.

So here goes…here is my answer.

I have been around the block enough to know of man’s inhumanity to man has gone on since the time there were at least two of us walking around upright. I also know that we will continue to be cruel to one another long after all of us debating this subject have been turned to dust. I wish I could say that, with all our marvelous technology, we have evolved beyond our barbarianism. Sadly, we know that some of us are still using the tried and true methods of two thousand years ago to butcher one another.

I think my point, when I wrote the piece, was the senselessness of it all. Forty years ago, a robber pointed a gun at me and threatened to kill me over the contents of a store safe. I remember how fearful I was that he was going to kill me. All these years later, I remember those terrifying moments as if it happened yesterday.

My father died when I was just 22-years old. I am going to be 67 in a few months. There is still a hole in my heart over the loss of my dad. Add to that hole, the loss of my mom, in-laws, aunts and uncles. I miss them all…even all these years later.

I know what happened to me has shaped how I feel about things. Life is such a precious commodity. The pain I feel over the loss of someone I loved…who died from natural causes is so painful to me. I can’t imagine the pain, if that death was at the hands of a murderer. I am troubled that others, who love as much as I do, actually know that pain.

Killing someone should not be a spur of the moment thing. It shouldn’t come at the hands of someone who can’t string two coherent sentences together. You see, that’s the thing that bothers me the most. How can there be people in this world who have such a careless disregard for life? How can they take that gift away from others without so much as a thought to what they have done?

So, in summary, the events happening today may be different than they were two years ago; but the pain left behind…the senselessness of these murderous acts is still very much alive. I know that I can’t allow the pain and the fear to overwhelm me. Life must, and does go on. But when someone is a victim of violence, I can take a moment to say a prayer for them that somehow God gives them the strength to go on. And I do draw strength from the fact that I am not alone in how I feel.

Tom

Mar 15, 2016 11:08 PM

Tom,

Thanks for your personal insights ! My response was looking at the moral decay that has occurred even between 2014 to 2016 , The brutality of ISIS , the random stabbings inflicted in Israel. An increase on the crimes committed against children . Laws changing in our country that have the founding fathers turning in their graves ! Every godless change forced on the American society , makes the next one easier to enact ! Polygamy anyone ?

Mar 15, 2016 11:21 PM

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