I am taking Christian Ethics this semester, and I love it! Every night at the beginning of class, we go over news stories that force us to look at some sort of ethical issue. Of course, ethical issues can be found in just about every news story that you can think of, so it has become very interesting seeing what different perspectives have been brought into class.
Last week the biggest thing on my mind was that the last police officer in Juarez had gone missing. Now, they think that she has been kidnapped by the drug cartel, but they said this might not be the case since her family didn’t file a missing persons report. For me that seems obvious that they wouldn’t, because then they would be in danger of being harassed by the same people that could be responsible for the kidnapping. This story really stirred up some torn emotions, because it was published in the United States. In fact, it was in our daily paper here in San Antonio. Here in San Antonio we are very aware of the drug war that is taking place on our borders, so what are we doing to stop it.
The other night I was in my World Religions class, and we were talking about how no one helped stop the Holocaust. We went through several newspapers that published articles during the Holocaust, but no one rose up to stop it. This makes me nervous. Now, I understand the argument that we have a lot of problems in our own country that we need to solve. I realize that we should use our funds to help fight poverty and crime in America. That being said, I do feel like we live in a very individualistic society that focuses on what we can do to help ourselves. If things aren’t directly affecting us, it’s hard to culminate the empathy needed to rise up and make a difference.
This excuse doesn’t work for me anymore. I am not saying everyone needs to abandon their normal lives and devote every waking moment to a cause. No. That would be ridiculous. However, we could, as a nation, at least acknowledge the atrocities that are going on across the world. I don’t have idealistic views that we can stop all the evil in the world, but I do know that we can make a difference. I am trying to live my life by the famous quote:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
This has inspired me at least be informed about what is going on around the world. I might find something that really hits close to home and find a realistic way to get involved.
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