How I do agree with you.

The more I think about these things, almost every issue that comes up, I think it boils down to people just not considering that ethics is a consideration in decision making.

Most of the evils in the world come down to people not considering how their decisions impact the rest of the community, nation, world.

I think when the nation was more 'religious' people sometimes thought of this.

But religion has proven to be weak because 'believers' can be so easily manipulated by those 'in charge'.

So, it is up to the family to teach values - but they don't seem to be doing a good job.

My thought is that in high schools, if we have home ec and shop and health classes, there should also be a class where kids discuss the ethical ramificaitons of decision making. How our decision affects other people. How greed might keep the economy going, but it can be pushed to the point where it actually hurts society. That as citizens of our communities we have a responsibility to look out for each other. That means to take others into consideration.

You/we can try to legislate morality, but it fails because people will then just look for loop holes and then whoever has the best legal mind will win. Usually that means money. What we really need is the sort of mindset that many communities in the early west had - that our neighbors are a sort of extended family and it is either sink or swim together. Because with pollution and global warming, if we do not change our attitude pretty quick, we are all gonzo.

Kids should just be encouraged in schools to see that values do play a part in deciding things.

We have an ex-Pres who is going around the world trying to change things for people to get them to be self-sustaining and out of poverty. Some simple things, like an irrigation system, would help immensly. There are people who water their crops with a bucket of water and a small bowl to splash the stuff onto plants. People do not even have a watering can, something so darned simple and they try to feed themselves this way.

Small farmers in India are committing suicide because somebody sold them genetically altered seeds and they will not grow a second crop and the ones that do require much more fertilizer and pesticides, which these people just cannot afford. So they are killing themselves because some hotshot did a deal with some beauraucrat in India and ended up selling a product that is not suitable for them.

And the killing is the same as stabbing them with his own hand, but by the time they do it the salesman probably miles away and not giving them a second thought. Perhaps he does not even know what he sold them and how it is affecting them. We are so sanitized in our lives from the damage that we cause.