Ethics, Morality and this whole terrible mess

Corey's recent posts (one, two, and so far just 3. I am sure there will be more so pay attention) and subsequent discussion with Gary (who can be very confusing) on ethics and morality has had me thinking all day yesterday and today. Most of us are aware of the problem in Darfur. My purpose on all this isn't political, it is philosophical. Please remember that if you choose to leave any comments. But I am going to try and tie them together. Because a discussion about ethics and morality and using sex, adultery, and dogs as the visuals (not all in one act...gross) doesn't cut it when our souls are in the balance.

You can read most of what is below in italics at the following link if you want to, but I have chose to have it here to keep you here.

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Sudan is the largest country in Africa, located just south of Egypt on the eastern edge of the Sahara desert. The country's major economic resource is oil. But, as in other developing countries with oil, this resource is not being developed for the benefit of the Sudanese people, but instead, for an elite few in the government and society. As much as 70 percent of Sudan's oil export revenues are used to finance the country's military.

Darfur, an area about the size of Texas, lies in western Sudan and borders Libya, Chad and the Central African Republic. It has only the most basic infrastructure or development. The approximately 6 million inhabitants of Darfur are among the poorest in Africa. They exist largely on either subsistence farming or nomadic herding. Even in good times, the Darfuri people face a very harsh and difficult life; these are not good times in Darfur.

The current crisis in Darfur began in 2003. After decades of neglect, drought, oppression and small-scale conflicts in Darfur, two rebel groups - the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - mounted a challenge to Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir. These groups represent agrarian farmers who are mostly non-Arab black African Muslims from a number of different tribes. President al-Bashir's response was brutal. In seeking to defeat the rebel movements, the Government of Sudan increased arms and support to local tribal and other militias, which have come to be known as the Janjaweed.[1] Their members are composed mostly of Arab black African Muslims[2] who herd cattle, camels, and other livestock. They have wiped out entire villages, destroyed food and water supplies, and
systematically murdered, tortured, and raped hundreds of thousands of Darfurians. These attacks occur with the direct support of the Government of Sudan's armed forces.

No portion of Darfur's civilian population has been spared violence, murder, rape and torture. As one illustration of how Khartoum has waged its war, the Sudanese military paints many of its attack aircraft white - the same color as UN humanitarian aircraft - a violation of international humanitarian law. When a plane approaches, villagers do not know whether it is on a mission to help them, or to bomb them. Often, it has been the latter.

This scorched earth campaign by the Sudanese government against Darfur's sedentary farming population has, by direct violence, disease and starvation, already claimed as many as 400,000 lives. It has crossed over into neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. In all, about 2.3million Darfuris have fled their homes and communities and now reside in a network of internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Darfur, with at least 200,000 more living in refugee camps in Chad. These refugees and IDPs are completely dependent on the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations for their very livelihood - food, water, shelter, and health care.

Another 1 million Darfuris still live in their villages, under the constant threat of bombings, raids, murder, rape and torture. Their safety depends on the presence of the underfunded and undermanned African Union (AU) peacekeeping force, numbering just 7,400 troops and personnel. However, the so-called "AMIS" force, in Darfur since October 2004, lacks a civilian protection mandate as well as adequate means to do stop the violence; its sole mandate is to monitor and report ceasefire violations and it has done little more, due to its limited mandate but also because of its anemic capacity.

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It can be difficult to understand the fact that some place like this exists in the same world as Lincoln Park, MI. This situation and current state of affairs is absolutely terrible. Terrible, horrible, macbre, etc. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions dead. Whole familes gone, wiped out. Whole villages of women being raped, repeatedly. Maybe I misspoke myself, it isn't difficult to understand, it's impossible to process and comprehend that these actions are happening...probably right now! *Cold Shivers*

So how do you get your mind around that?

It's at that point that you begin to wonder to yourself about yourself. You can't comprehend it because you cannot find it within you to do something like that.

Can you?

In your thought process you ask yourself, "Am I capable of rape or murder or any of the other stuff going on over there?"

"No way! Nothing in me is capable of that. " Is most of us would repsond.

So what makes me/us different than them? After all, they are human and I am human. Why such the difference? Why am I better than them?

But, honestly, who is better?

See, if I say I am not better than them, then that makes me capable of those atrocities and would make me evil, but if I answer no, it would suggest I believe I am better evolved than some of them men in the Sudan. And then I would have some explaining to do.

So am I capable of those things? Are we all capable of those things?

How do you answer that?

How should we answer that and how we want to answer that are probably at opposite ends of the spectrum.

What it does is give credence to the ole fundamentalist Christian saying of a "sin nature." We're all born flawed and something inside of us is broken. It's easier to do bad things than good things. And there is something in that basic fact, some little clue to the meaning of the universe. But yet we all know people who do great things and appear to be actual living saints.

Regardless of our own "living saints", the flawed nature of our existence is everywhere.

Why do we have to train a child to not lie about cleaning up his toys or admitting when they break something? We have to be taught to be good, it doesn't come natural. But it doesn't stop at childhood. We get to adulthood and we have bosses and cops and judges. Without them there'd be anarchy. Complete anarchy.

Don't think so? Go back to the beginning of this post and read the intro again.

However, I was taught right from wrong as a child, and I am fairly confident I would be just fine without cops. But know this, I drive completely different when a cop is behind me than when there isn't.

And this sad fact is true. It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in this system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we'll be punished. But that doesn't make us good people, it makes us subdued. Just think about the Congress and the Senate and the President (present leader probably excluded). The genius of the American system is not freedom; it is checks and balances. Nobody gets all the power. Everybody is watching everybody else.

It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched is perverse. I wonder where they got the idea to begin with?