American Values

Saudi’s Prince reliably has been accursed of the murder of a Washington Post journalist. The journalist was a Saudi citizen and American resident who was lured into the Saudi Embassy in Turkey and not only murdered but dismembered.

For many Americans, the Saudi’s murder of this journalist is meaningless and unimportant. What happened was a half a world away to someone that many Americans have been carefully taught to hate. His death means nothing to them. He was a foreigner, an alien, not an American in their views.

But what if that scenario was different?

But I want you do something. I want you to suspend your thinking right there. I want to you imagine, instead, that the slaughtered and dismembered journalist was your son or brother or father or cousin or nephew. What if that journalist was a member of your family? How would you feel?

Trump said America would look into the situation, but he considered the $100 Billion plus arms deals with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) more important. Making money was more important than human lives. Again, imagine your own son or father or cousin or nephew was the object of Trump’s dismissal of your family member in favor of his transactional regard for money and profit?

How would you feel? What would you think if that journalist was your child or father or brother when Trump said making money was more important?

America must wake up. We have a president who cares nothing about human lives or Christian values. His only concerns are money and his fragile ego. Unfortunately, that plague of greed, which we see personified in Trump, infects much of our country.

Some things, like human lives, are more important than corporate profits. Some things require Americans to stand up and say NO.

I grew up as a child of the Greatest Generation, the generation that fought the fascism of Hitler and Nazi and the nationalism of Japan. I spent most of my first 20 some years around American soldiers, seeing their commitments to family and country. They didn’t join the military for money or prestige. They joined because they believed in the historic American values of life, liberty and justice for all…not greed-is-good, transactional politics.

Human lives and our freedom to speak our minds, via freedom of the press, and to peacefully protest governments are written into the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We must put aside our tribalism to remember our founding documents and what this great country has stood for worldwide over 70 years.

If you don’t believe me, read Ernie Pyles’ books on WWII.

We are better than Trump. We are better than hailing greed and transactionism or historic Chinese style merchantilism first. That is what Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, Washington believed. We should too.