While we are not responsible for all the misery in the world, we are not blameless. Our appetites for oil, diamonds and drugs fuel civil wars and fund oppressive governments and criminals, Our prosperity encourages health providers to leave the developing world poorly cared for. It would be possible to subsidize those health providers’ salaries and their clinics, encouraging them to stay at home where their services are vitally needed. What do we do? With one heroic medical intervention we spend money that could save thousands if spent on the world’s poor. We spend more money on pet care than many countries spend on people care.

Given the above situation what entitles people to assert a “right to life” while their consumption choices and the economic system they support determines who will live and who will die?

Asserting a “right to life” enables people to clothe themselves in righteousness while persisting in self-indulgence. Our society offers many such cheap methods to help us quiet our consciences. Do you feel better knowing that a seller will contribute a portion of their profit to a nonprofit (perhaps their trade association or political action committee)? Do you choose to believe our politicians who promise us continued economic growth, assure us of our innocence and suggest that a rising tide will lift all boats, all highly questionable propositions?

Perhaps the wealth of the United States could be more constructively employed in the world if the Republican Party would retire the elephant symbol, the Democrats the donkey, and unify under the pig!

Such realism might encourage us to consider alternatives to giving our money to conniving cowboy capitalists.

John Gibson

Blooming Prairie