Have We Lost Our Way?

Every morning I wake to the news of the world and every morning I’m amazed at what I hear and see. Ideas and thoughts and actions and words that were left behind in the past are coming back out to show the worst of our humanity. It is like those nasty little secrets that were stuffed away under the bed or in the closet are coming back out in full force. Have we not learned anything?

I’m not a politician. I’m not particularly fond of any political association. I am a citizen and a taxpayer who reads and obeys the laws until they are so confusing or nonsensical that I wonder about the elected officials we choose to lead us. Even with a large country with only about 60% paying taxes, our government’s budget has gone through the roof to make us borrow due to the lack of funds.

The bias and bigotry and trash-talk emphasized by every method and means of media (true or false) has created partisanship not seen since the civil way. With all our self-made categorizing and cataloging and identifying and self-describing have we become too polarized?

Political polarization refers to the cases in which an individual’s stance on a given issue, policy, or person is more likely to be strictly defined by their identification with a particular political party (e.g., Democrat or Republican) or ideology (e.g., liberal or conservative).

Some political scientists argue that polarization requires divergence on a broad range of issues based on a consistent set of beliefs. Others argue polarization occurs when there are stark partisan or ideological divides, even if the opinion is polarized only on a few issues.

Unlike a successful marriage, our Reds and our Blues don’t know how to compromise so maybe we should get divorced?

Watching this nonsense everyday and thinking it can’t get any worse; it does.

Scanning the established refutable news providers the headlines tell us what to watch on television and where the latest LBGTQXYZ event will be held.

LGBT, or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. Activists believed that the term gay community did not accurately represent all those to whom it referred.

The initialism has become mainstream as a self-designation; it has been adopted by the majority of sexuality and gender identity-based community centers and media in the United States, as well as some other English-speaking countries. The initialism LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. It may be used to refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual identity; LGBTQ has been recorded since 1996. Those who add intersex people to LGBT groups or organizing use an extended initialism LGBTI. Some people combine the two acronyms and use the term LGBTIQ or LGBTQI. Others use LGBT+ to encompass spectrums of sexuality and gender.

What was once a slur is not a pride. Are you keeping up?

Now life is tough enough without traffic jams on antiquated roads or mass slaughter of children in schools or rallies that turn into battlegrounds over old statues, there are lots of ways we have invented to ease our pain and suffering.

Binging into fantasy worlds or games that take out our anger against our enemies all the while staying in constant contact. When the pain gets too much a variety of narcotics, potions, pills and natural supplements to escape reality.

The opioid epidemic or opioid crisis is the rapid increase in the use of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs in the United States and Canada beginning in the late 1990s and continuing throughout the next two decades. Opioids are a diverse class of moderately strong painkillers, including oxycodone (commonly sold under the trade names OxyContin and Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin), and a very strong painkiller, fentanyl, which is synthesized to resemble other opiates such as opium-derived morphine and heroin.

The potency and availability of these substances, despite their high risk of addiction and overdose, have made them popular both as formal medical treatments and as recreational drugs. Due to their sedative effects on the part of the brain, which regulates breathing, the respiratory center of the medulla oblongata, opioids in high doses present the potential for respiratory depression, and may cause respiratory failure and death.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, “overdose deaths, particularly from prescription drugs and heroin, have reached epidemic levels.” Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths in 2016 involved prescription opioids. From 1999 to 2008, overdose death rates, sales, and substance abuse treatment admissions related to opioid pain relievers all increased substantially. By 2015, there were more than 50,000 annual deaths from drug overdose, causing more deaths than either car accidents or guns.

Drug overdoses have since become the leading cause of death of Americans 50 or younger, with two-thirds of those deaths from opioids. In 2016, the crisis decreased overall life expectancy of Americans for the second consecutive year. Overall life expectancy fell from 78.7 to 78.6 years. Men were disproportionately more affected due to higher overdose death rates, with life expectancy declining from 76.3 to 76.1 years. Women's life expectancy remained stable at 81.1 years.

In 2016, over 64,000 Americans died from overdoses, 21 percent more than the almost 53,000 in 2015. By comparison, the figure was 16,000 in 2010, and 4,000 in 1999. While death rates varied by state, public health experts estimate that nationwide over 500,000 people could die from the epidemic over the next 10 years. In Canada, half of the overdoses were accidental, while a third were intentional. The remainder were unknown. Many of the deaths are from an extremely potent opioid, fentanyl, which is trafficked from Mexico. The epidemic cost the United States an estimated $504 billion in 2015.

CDC former director Thomas Frieden said that “America is awash in opioids; urgent action is critical.” The crisis has changed moral, social, and cultural resistance to street drug alternatives such as heroin. In March 2017, Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, declared a state of emergency to combat the opioid epidemic, and in July 2017 opioid addiction was cited as the “FDA's biggest crisis”. On October 26, 2017, President Donald Trump concurred with his Commission’s report and declared the country's opioid crisis a “public health emergency”.

Of course our steady use of sugar drinks, lack of exercise, and pizza is a slow suicide.

Some might seem what is being broadcasted is a sin.

In a religious context, sin is the act of transgression against divine law. Sin can also be viewed as any thought or action that endangers the ideal relationship between an individual and God; or as any diversion from the perceived ideal order for human living.

In Jainism, sin refers to anything that harms the possibility of the jiva (being) to attain moksha (supreme emancipation). In Islamic ethics, Muslims see sin as anything that goes against the commands of Allah (God). Judaism regards the violation of any of the 613 commandments as a sin. 

The serpent who beguiled Eve to eat of the fruit was punished by having it and its kind being made to crawl on the ground and God set an enmity between them and Eve’s descendants (Genesis 3:14-15). The pains of childbirth and the sorrow of bringing about life punished Eve that would eventually age, sicken and die (Genesis 3:16).

The second part of the curse about being subordinate to Adam originates from her creation from one of Adam’s ribs to be his helper (Genesis 2:18-25); the curse now clarifies that she must now obey her husband and desire only him.

Adam was punished by having to work endlessly to feed himself and his family. The land would bring forth both thistles and thorns to be cleared and herbs and grain to be planted, nurtured, and harvested.

The second part of the curse about his mortality is from his origin as red clay - he is from the land and he and his descendants would return to it when buried after death. When Adam’s son Cain slew his brother Abel, he introduced murder into the world (Genesis 4:8-10). For his punishment, God banished him as a fugitive, but first marked him with a sign that would protect him and his descendants from harm (Genesis 4:11-16).

Yet the government is separated from religion (In God We Trust) but it still drapes our beliefs over our secular laws.

Or the easy way out

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one’s own death for no other purpose than to end one’s life (i.e., not sacrificing oneself for others). Many people kill themselves in impulsive acts because of financial difficulties, irrecoverable loss of good name, troubles with relationships (loss of a great love or, among adolescents in recent years, bullying). Others kill themselves because of mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and substance abuse; including alcoholism and the use of benzodiazepines. Those who have previously attempted suicide are quite likely to try again.

Suicide prevention efforts include limiting access to methods of suicide; such as firearms, drugs, and poisons; treating mental disorders and substance misuse; proper media reporting of suicide; and improving economic conditions. Even though crisis hotlines are common, there is little evidence of their effectiveness.

Views on suicide have been influenced by broad existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life.

The Abrahamic religions traditionally consider suicide as an offense towards God, due to the belief in the sanctity of life. During the samurai era in Japan, a form of suicide known as seppuku (harakiri) was respected as a means of making up for failure or as a form of protest.

Suicide and attempted suicide, while previously illegal, are no longer so in most Western countries. It remains a criminal offense in many countries.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, suicide has been used on rare occasions as a form of protest, and kamikaze and suicide bombings have been used as a military or terrorist tactic.

Suicide rates have increased in nearly every state over the past two decades, and half of the states have seen suicide rates go up more than 30 percent.

But is this not murder?

Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is a killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.

Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus believe that the person charged should receive harsh punishments for the purposes of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation. In most countries, a person convicted of murder generally faces a long-term prison sentence, possibly a life sentence; and in a few, the death penalty may be imposed.

Assisted suicide is suicide committed with the aid of another person, sometimes a physician. The term is often used interchangeably with physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which involves a doctor “knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counseling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs.”

Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Colombia, and Switzerland allow physicians to physically assist in the death of patients. In the United States, seven states allow what proponents refer to as medical aid in dying and opponents as assisted suicide, a practice in which a person who has been diagnosed as terminally ill with six months or less to live can request a lethal dose of a barbiturates to self-administer. This option is designated a legal form of assisted suicide by distinct state laws. Non-medical assisted suicide is unlawful by common law or criminal statute in the vast majority of the United States (with some states having no definitive law or statute).

Physician-assisted suicide is similar to but formally distinct from euthanasia. In cases of euthanasia the physician administers the means of death, usually a lethal drug. In physician-assisted suicide, it is required that a person of sound mind voluntarily expresses his or her wish to die and requests a dose of barbiturates that will end his or her life. The distinguishing aspect is that physician-assisted suicide requires the patient to self-administer the drugs.

But if one takes another’s life inside their own body is it murder or suicide or deliverance?

Abortion is the ending of pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus before it can survive outside the uterus. An abortion that occurs spontaneously is also known as a miscarriage. An abortion may be caused purposely and is then called an induced abortion, or less frequently, “induced miscarriage”. The word abortion is often used to mean only induced abortions. A similar procedure after the fetus could potentially survive outside the womb is known as a “late termination of pregnancy”.

When allowed by law, abortion in the developed world is one of the safest procedures in medicine. Modern methods use medication or surgery for abortions. The drug mifepristone in combination with prostaglandin appears to be as safe and effective as surgery during the first and second trimester of pregnancy. Birth control, such as the pill or intrauterine devices, can be used immediately following abortion. When performed legally and safely, induced abortions do not increase the risk of long-term mental or physical problems. In contrast, unsafe abortions (those performed by unskilled individuals, with hazardous equipment, or in unsanitary facilities) cause 47,000 deaths and 5 million hospital admissions each year. The World Health Organization recommends safe and legal abortions be available to all women.

Around 56 million abortions are performed each year in the world, with about 45% done unsafely. Abortion rates changed little between 2003 and 2008, before which they decreased for at least two decades as access to family planning and birth control increased. As of 2008, 40% of the world’s women had access to legal abortions without limits as to reason.

Historically, abortions have been attempted using herbal medicines, sharp tools, forceful massage, or through other traditional methods. Abortion laws and cultural or religious views of abortions are different around the world. In some areas abortion is legal only in specific cases such as rape, problems with the fetus, poverty, risk to a woman's health, or incest. In many places there is much debate over the moral, ethical, and legal issues of abortion. Those who oppose abortion often maintain that an embryo or fetus is a human with a right to life, and so they may compare abortion to murder. Those who favor the legality of abortion often hold that a woman has a right to make decisions about her own body. Others favor legal and accessible abortion as a public health measure.

And if this is murder, how do we differentiate between good murder and bad murder?

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes or capital offences, and they commonly include offenses such as murder, treason, espionage, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and genocide.

Fifty-six countries retain capital punishment, 103 countries have completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 30 are abolitionist in practice.

Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in several countries and states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment. The Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, has sought to abolish the use of the death penalty by its members absolutely, through Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, this only affects those member states, which have signed and ratified it, and they do not include Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan.

So the news today is more rancid civility and inhumanity showing the worst of our species against one another. As the clouds grow darker the rest of us will crawl into our holes throwing prayers and hopes as current culture fragments into what the future will bring.

BAA! BAA! BAA!