Years ago, religions enforced what I would call a pseudo moral code through the power of the state to enact laws desired by the most powerful religions. This of course reflected the power that religions had in society back when you could go to hell for missing mass on Sunday. Gambling was verboten. There was legalized horse race betting in only a few states, and a few states had some other sports such as greyhound racing or Jai Alai which you could bet on. Legally, you could only place bets at the venue. Of course, organized crime found it very lucrative to offer “off track” betting. Every street corner where I grew up had a bookie some place or other. And of course, the numbers game was a very popular way for fools to lose their money. Sports betting was done privately, and casino gambling did not start in Las Vegas until 1931. It had been legal earlier but was outlawed in 1910 and not legalized until 1931. The only lottery I ever heard of when I was growing up had to do with the Irish Sweepstakes. There must have been some way to buy these tickets, but I never investigated it.
Today, you can buy pull tabs and lottery tickets in almost every gas station. Casinos are just around the corner in twenty states and sports betting became legal on April 15, 2021, in the USA. Organized religion believed that gambling would be addictive, and husband and wives would neglect their parental responsibilities as they gambled away their hard-earned wages. People who regularly buy lottery tickets are the norm today even though economists refer to the lottery as a tax on the poor and the stupid.
Marijuana was once considered a drug from Satan and every state in the Union banned its sale. The movie “Reefer Madness” came out in 1936 and portrayed wild eyed youth going crazy after smoking a joint. Smoking weed was a sure path to hell and damnation. As of May 27, 2022, 19 states, two territories and the District of Columbia have now enacted measures to regulate cannabis for adult non-medical use with several other states limiting its use to medical purposes. You can now smoke that joint where it once would have put you in jail.
Whiskey can now be purchased almost 24/7 in many states. You can buy it in grocery stores, gas stations, bars, and convenience stores. Perhaps no substance has been more abhorred by religions than whiskey. Benjamin Franklin said that “Beer is proof that God loved man and wanted him to be happy.” However, this was not the attitude of most religious organizations. Temperance movements motivated by so called moral considerations did their best to ban alcohol in the US. It is illegal in thirteen countries in the world. Several of the world’s major religions ban the use of alcohol. There are seventy-five scripture (Bible) warnings against the drinking of alcohol. Is it any wonder that so many religions have prohibited the drinking of alcohol.
- Hosea 4:11 – Intoxicating wine takes away intelligence.
- Micah 2:11 – Israelites are eager to follow false teachers who prophesy plenty of intoxicating drinks.
- Habakkuk 2:16 – Drinking leads to shame.
I have been trying to show some of the influences that religion and state have had in terms of legislating and enforcing moral codes and policy. I could say more about prostitution and pornography but the nuances I hold regarding these subjects would entail a blog of their own. Suffice it to say that restrictions in these areas have declined considerably in the last fifty years.
Now there may be some of you reading my blog and expecting a fire and brimstone sermon regarding the sins of humanity and the temptations of the devil. Nothing could be further from my mind. I am not advocating going back to the religious sanctions or beliefs that fueled so much of our political system. In the first place, they were misguided and in the second place they penalized those who could practice moral virtues along with those most reluctant. I could never understand why I could not buy liquor on Sunday or after 10 PM on weekdays or in a grocery store. I have never received a DUI or even a warning for driving drunk.
The biggest problem with efforts to legislate morality is that they assume that the legal sanctions will result in a more moral society. The evidence of racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia in America should put a stake through the heart of that false belief. The government has never been a vendor of morality. People confuse legality with morality.
The government has always been in the marketing business. They would market “SIN” if they could find a way to sell it or allow it to be sold. In some respects, they are already doing that with the legalization of gambling and their promotion of bigger and bigger lotteries. The poor buy more and more tickets when the odds go ever higher against anyone winning. Powerball’s odds are 1 in 292 million, and the combined populations in the states where tickets are sold equal nearly 320 million. What would anyone do with 2 billion dollars? (As I write this, the lottery of 2.0 billion has been won by a single person in California)
This is the stuff of more is better which I talked about in my last blog. How large of a jackpot would be enough to support you for the rest of your life? Assuming the average age of a lottery ticket holder, it would take nearly $5 million, according to Robert Pagliarini, president of Pacifica Wealth Advisors. With a net take home of 1 billion dollars, one billion dollars could easily support 200 people for the rest of their lives.
There is nothing moral about ever bigger lottery purses. Not to mention the fact that the odds are better that the lottery winner will go bankrupt rather than that they will see a happy old age with lots of money. “Life after winning the lottery may not stay glamorous forever. Whether they win $500 million or $1 million, about 70 percent of lotto winners lose or spend all that money in five years or less.” — Easy Come, Easy Go.
What does this have to do with morality?
First, we must define morality. It is not about making money, winning the lottery, drinking booze, smoking weed or visiting a casino. The Prosperity Gospel is a distortion of the idea of moral behavior. Morality is the process of asking yourself what impact an action, a course of action, a decision, a purchase, or a behavior will have on other people. It does not mean that you cannot drink and gamble. It does not mean that you cannot have wild sex at a swinger’s party. It does mean that you need to be able to ask yourself if your gambling and drinking is having a negative impact on others. It does mean that you need to ask yourself if your sexual habits are having a negative impact on other people. By others. I mean more than your family, more than your friends, more than your neighbors. I mean other states. I mean other countries. I mean the entire world. This does not mean that you have no rights. You have the right to swing your arm but your right proverbially stops at the nose of another person.
As I said in my last blog, we must look outside of ourselves to find morality. This is not easy to do. Some of us, (fewer every year) go to a church on Sunday where we may get a sermon that asks us to look at our behaviors and what we can do for other people. (“According to a 2021 survey, 31 percent of Americans never attend church or synagogue, compared to 22 percent of Americans who attend every week.”— Church Attendance of Americans) Those of us who attend church hear maybe a twenty or thirty minute sermon each week on morality.
Compared to this 30-minute sermon once per week for maybe fifty percent of Americans:
“The average American watches four hours of TV each day (that’s down from about six hours in the 1960s through 1990s by the way). There are about twenty minutes of “non-program material” per hour, which includes ads, promos, news updates, etc. For our purposes, let’s consider all of this commercial matter. So in four hours, we see eighty minutes of commercials.” — Fred Pagano, Radio, television and Internet advertising producer and director.
This means that the average American hears about 560 minutes of paid advertisements each week or the equivalent of 19 sermons. These ads exhort you to think of yourself. You are special but you need more to be more special. If you don’t buy more, you neighbors will look down on you. Your friends will surpass you in status. Your family will stop loving you. You can be a better smarter person, but you must buy the new Persico Bacon Maker. You need a new car or maybe even a bigger house. You should go out to eat more or get a new insurance policy.
Advertisements are NEVER what you can do for other people or society. They are ALWAYS inherently selfish. Is it any wonder that Americans shop till they drop or keep on buying more stuff that is bigger and bigger than they will ever need? Americans have been and are continually bombarded by Madison Avenue messages that are a form of de facto brainwashing. Too many Americans today are selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, and exhibit an entitlement mentality. Economic policy extols benefits that will accrue to society with more buying and more spending. It is somewhat ironic that the rampant inflation today and the wild economic swings have not been helped one iota by a greedy narcissistic economic policy that ignores any effort to provide a balance Moral Policy. In addition, Americans are no happier today than they were seventy years ago.
“The vast majority of Americans report being “very” (42%) or “fairly happy” (44%), but the combined 86% is down from 91% the last time Gallup asked about this, in December 2008. It is also the lowest overall percentage happy Gallup has recorded in periodic readings over 71 years and is only the fifth time happiness has dipped below the 90% mark in 23 readings since 1948.” — Happiness Not Quite as Widespread as Usual in the U.S
How do we get a balance between Moral Policy and Economic Policy?
My apologies. This blog was longer than I thought it would be. I will address the above question in my next blog. In the meantime, I would love to hear any comments, questions or ideas that you might have concerning the issues I have raised in this and my previous blog.
Thus, the uncoupling of Church and State in the constitution of the United States set the stage for a catastrophic imbalance between Moral Policy and Economic Policy. Over the years, the lack of influence in organized religions at the political level was abetted by the horrendous influence and power of Economic Policy. If Moral Policy was once the heart of a religion, it was supplanted by an Economic Policy which has become the main religion in America. This policy states that more is better and that you can never be too rich or have too much stuff.
What we once believed was a great political innovation to separate Church and State has led to this imbalance. There was no place in the state for religion and no place in religion for politics. America’s dominant dream for peace, justice and equality was replaced with a dream for more money, more power and more fame. The push by the State for this dream dwarfed any efforts by religion to provide a moral balance and the State had no legitimacy for morality. People are cast adrift amidst a chaotic and vicious ocean of competition for more and more stuff. No moral anchors exist that are powerful enough to counterbalance the tide of greed that this has brought to our shores. Guns have replaced morality as citizens arm themselves to prevent imagined attacks at taking away their STUFF.
This type of courage is the most obvious and perhaps least subtle. The mountain climber, the motorcycle racer, the football player, the sky diver all display what to some of us would seem to be a reckless disregard for life. Each of these individuals risk life and limb for either fame, fortune, fun or to achieve some goal. Often money is the least of their motivations for risking their lives. These people do things that leave most of us awestruck but also inspired. We watch their events on TV, in the movies and at live shows. We never fail to be impressed by the exploits and daring do that such individuals undertake. Risk is the hallmark of their efforts and we note that many of them pay for their risky behaviors. Death is an ever present companion for these people. Somehow though, they rise above the fears that chain the rest of us to the TV and they are out there doing what many of us only do in our dreams.
What do you do when someone tells you that your ideas are stupid and that you will never amount to anything? If you are like most of us, you give up and go on to something else. The person with intellectual courage though is different from the rest of us. They don’t give up on their ideas. They plod forward in the face of distain, insults and criticism. Many times they are dead and buried before the value of their ideas are recognized. Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur and Copernicus were all ridiculed and ostracized for many years before their ideas were accepted. Socrates was executed for his ideas. Indeed, here is what Socrates said at his trial:
I have a good friend of mine who will not go to funerals. They make him feel very sad and he tries to avoid such feelings. No one of us likes to feel sad. It takes a kind of courage to go to a funeral. What do you say at a funeral to the friends and relatives of the departed one? How do you act? What if you did not know the person very well? There are many ways to feel embarrassed or like a fish out of water at a funeral. Easier to stay home then go. But it takes a certain kind of courage to deal with emotional risk. Any courage is difficult because of the risk. Emotional risk entails looking stupid, feeling stupid or having to deal with difficult feelings. A person with emotional courage confronts these situations with a degree of bravery and élan that escapes many of us.
One of the greatest fears that many people have is called “stage fright” or fear of public speaking. Many professional speakers and actors/actresses feel significant stage fright. Actress Carol Burnett was so nervous that she threw up before many of her performances. Most of us would never think of getting up on a stage. I know that people call it stage fright, but it is not really about the stage, it is really about us. Who wants to look stupid and particularly in front of hundreds or people? It takes emotional courage to deal with life. All of us have it, but we often choose not to exercise it. We simply spend our lives trying to avoid situations that might make us look dumb or embarrass ourselves. The people with emotional courage deal with these situations and take the risk that the rest of us hide from.
The world is full of examples of moral courage. However, to my way of thinking, the amount of moral cowardice far outweighs the shining examples of moral courage. The number of Martin Luther Kings, Gandhis, Mandelas, Parks, Kellers and Kyis are dwarfed by the number of moral cowards who turn the quote I noted above around. These are the people who when in the majority would tyrannize the minorities. They are the moral cowards who use their positions to foster hatred and bigotry and intolerance towards the disadvantaged and weak. They prey on the sick and 
hungry and would deny benefits or help to anyone who is not a member of their tribe or affiliation. They go through life pretending to be good people and deluding themselves that they are.
Nevertheless, in the face of all this iniquity, the majority of humankind has a spiritual courage that defies logic. The majority of people want to do good for the world. The majority of people are good and most people try to leave the world a better place then they found it. This is truly an amazing observation. More people are spiritual heroes than not. Every day those who have the courage and strength to get out of bed and to start a new day show a sense of spiritual courage. It would be easier to hide and to do nothing then to face the daily rigors of life on our planet. Yet, that is what the majority of people do each day. They get out of bed. They go to work. They volunteer. They innovate and create. They campaign for their ideals. They build. They love. They pay taxes. They die. And the cycle starts all over again for the next generation.
One day a young student came to me and complained that he felt that his rights had been violated. At the time, I took any students complaints very seriously particularly when it concerned rights. I listened to his problem and asked him what he wanted me to do about it. He asked if I would intercede on his behalf with Sister Giovanni, who was our principal. I wanted to show the young man that I was concerned and caring and so I agreed to carry his problem to Sister G as she was known. She was feared and loved by almost all students so it did not surprise me that he thought I might have more luck with Sister G than he would have. 
I went to Sister G’s office and knocked on her door. She opened it and welcomed me in. We exchanged some pleasantries and she asked me what I needed. I began to explain the issue that the student had brought to me. Sister G listened attentively. When I was done, she smiled and nodded reassuringly. I thought “Great, I have been successful.” She then spoke, “This is your first year teaching right John?” “Yes, it is,” I answered. “Well, I have heard the issue and I may address it later, but I want to give you an important piece of advice now. Students just like the majority of people will always demand their rights, but they seldom demand their responsibilities.” Then, she gave me the philosophy that I have never forgotten. “John,” she continued, “for every right there is always a responsibility.” That was the end of our discussion.
What is the solution to the problem that we are facing today? A poisonous cultural stew of narcissism and entitlement driven by a rights only oriented mentality that thinks they are above responsibilities. I have reached the point in this essay where it would be easy to say, “Sorry, I don’t have the answer.” Or else, I could now list several bromides which may or may not have much effect. I have the following solution which I believe in 100 percent. I doubt that it would be acceptable to Americans as too many people have grown privileged, lazy, and indulgent in this country. 
My solution is for a National Required Service (NRS) that starts at the age of 18 for every man and woman in America. Upon finishing high school and before starting college, every American would need to attend the National Required Service. They would have two options. The first option would be to choose between a two-year service or a four-year service. A two-year service would be the minimum. The advantage of a longer service would lie in the educational benefits that would accrue. Serve two years and you would receive two years of financial credit towards any public education institution of your choice in the country including vocational education as well as liberal arts. Choose a four-year tour of service and you would receive four years of financial credit towards the public institution of your desire.
Aging Capriciously 