Your Turn: Hypocrisy of the powerful is on full display
Finally, I have capitulated to persistent nudging of the triune Spirit in me to address the hypocrisy and anomalies of our ways. I’ll begin with a particular argument I hear every time mass shooting occurs anywhere in our country.
The argument is made that guns, not people, kill people. With all due respect, we don’t buy products for their own sake. We buy products for the utility we expect to derive from them. For instance, we buy light bulbs because we want light. We will be disappointed if the light bulb filament fails to glow. I read long ago that when Thomas Edison founded his electric light company in 1886, he neither set out to sell people electricity, nor even set out to sell them light bulbs; his purpose was to sell them light.
People don’t buy products for their own sake; rather, they have needs, wants, and desires for benefits derived from them. As an Xcel energy customer, what I need is heat for cooking, for space heating and for water heating.
A person who goes into a store and buys a gun does not buy it for its own sake but for the purposes the gun would afford them. We use guns to kill animals because many of us are carnivorous. We use guns for self-defense against animals, including people. We use guns to kill those we hate, we are angry with, or because we fear some cockamamie future demographic changes that may take away what privileges and advantages we have now.
Therefore, as groundbreaking as the argument may seem to its maker, it just doesn’t hold water. I should also point out that most guns are made with built-in trigger mechanism meant to be conveniently worked with a person’s index finger.
Another argument I hear often is that pro-choice people kill babies while coddling animals and holding rallies to support animal rights. One thing I find intriguing in the controversy about abortion is that male politicians seem to be in the majority against it. They say anything that would gain traction and garner them votes to stay in power. Unfortunately, many Christian denominations believe them. What amazes me most of all, though, is the zealotry of these men who insist on legislating morality and what women should or shouldn’t do in their privacy. It reminds me of something crass about patriarchy of the past that “a woman’s place is in the kitchen.” I know abortion is a Christian and religious matter, which I understand and don’t celebrate or encourage. I’m sure abortion isn’t anyone’s preferred lifestyle; it is something people would rather not do.
However, what is upsetting is that the same overzealous politicians have no qualms supporting the invasion of a small country on the falsehood that it possesses weapons of mass destruction. We invade a country falsely just to gain control of its resources that greedy and covetous oligarchy wants. We condemn abortion but make no bones about sending young people in harm’s way based on deceit. Both of these are certainly sinful and morally wrong.
The oligarchy makes tons of money from the invasion, and then makes tons more money writing books after the fact to tell us they were misled. We get simulated remorse and apology, and all is supposed to be well and forgotten. Sorry, not so!
Finally, when our multinational corporations are denied control of resources in developing counties their leaders want to use for the wellbeing of their citizens, such leaders are assassinated and replaced by our friends. A couple examples will suffice: President Salvador Allende of Chile, assassinated and replaced by Augusto Pinochet; Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of Congo was murdered and replaced by Mobutu Sese Seko. Both of these successors were brutal dictators who became very wealthy at the expense of languishing citizenry.
These and other aberrant undertakings are reasons why our leaders are viewed askance and people turn against us.
— This is the opinion of St. Cloud resident Anthony Akubue. Submit a Your Turn of your own by emailing it to columns@stcloudtimes.com.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Your Turn: Hypocrisy of the powerful is on full display
