Captains Courageous - Human Rights

Greetings Dear Reader,

Admiral Dougherty: "Jean-Luc, we're only moving six hundred people!"

Captain Picard: "How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong? Hmm? A thousand? Fifty thousand? A million? How many does it take, Admiral?"  -  Jean Luc Picard – TNG: Insurrection

I apologize in advance that this is going to sound harsh.  That is not my heart; to be harsh.  I do, however, need to be clear on this topic.  I am not pointing fingers.  I am confessing truth on behalf of all of us.  I am not hating anyone.  I am hating practices that we tolerate for the sake of our own comfort.

Let us be clear.  We tolerate human rights violations.  We ignore them in third world countries.  We do business with nations who treat women as property.  We are product dependent on nations where freedom is not a way of life.  If you deny that everyone benefits from these situations then you are lying to yourself.

To verify this just ask yourself where your stuff comes from.   I am not on a rant about buying things that are “Made in America”.  That is another discussion.  What I am concerned about is the actual cost of the things we have.  From diamonds to cheap shoes we all know in the dark recesses of our minds that our “stuff” is often produced in part from the suffering of others.  We know it.

We need to ask ourselves how much human suffering we are willing to purchase for the sake of our greed, ego, or comfort.  We need to recognize that we walk over corpses for our things sometimes.  We will protest wearing fur whilst wearing a t-shirt made in a Thai sweatshop by an eight-year-old child.  We will allow women to be treated as things in the Middle East to save a nickel on a gallon of gas.  We allow restaurant workers to be underpaid so the price of our salad won’t go up.

I cannot solve all of the problems that violate human rights.  I can barely scratch the surface.  I can, however, be aware.  I can give my custom to places that respect human rights and conduct business in that way.  I can assure that I treat all humans as precious and valued.  I can sacrifice plenty to raise the station of others.  I can decide that violating one human is enough to disallow.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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