On the Existential Threat of Selective Censorship

(A loving reminder and warning I offer out of heartfelt concern and genuine compassion for you all.)

The society we have known thus far is unraveling and failing for many reasons, but let me try to briefly identify one particularly fundamental cause based on the behavior I have noticed people actively engaging in lately: namely, disconnecting from others who challenge us to grow and learn and be invested in one another. People have generally forgotten or were denied the gift of knowing how to truly listen to each other with genuine presence and emotional investment. Many have forgotten how to respect others by giving them their full, open-minded attention and appreciation, denying the dignity and invalidating the existence of the other person. We do this quite commonly while failing to recognize that such treatment is a major source of our own suffering, loneliness, and despair when the tables are turned.

When there is a society-wide culture that promotes a disrespect for and avoidance of different points of view, that society is inevitably doomed, because society is a system and all healthy systems require healthy feedback loops. We all need to be heard and have our concerns acknowledged and our fears validated, or we start to go a little crazy inside because suffering must be transformed for it to not consume and corrupt us. Although transforming our suffering requires personal courage and personal effort, we all need our pain to be acknowledged and validated along the way, and we need others to help guide us through the difficulty. Through truly listening to one another, we can see that all misbehavior stems from ignorance or a place of deep suffering. When we recognize this, we lose our instinct to be fearful and mistrustful of others by default.

The potential destruction of civilized society will, ultimately, be a result of this behavior of willful avoidance generating a huge buildup of anger, resentment, fear, and despair in us all. Why deny others the kind of attention and appreciation you want others to pay you, and that you need in order to be sane and happy? Being truly emotionally invested and involved in the wellbeing of others, as well as in their hopes and doubts, dreams and nightmares, staves off disaster for us all.

– With Love, Respect, & Gratitude for You All

New Music: "Piercing the Veil"

"Butterfly Sky" by 0w1-3Y3

Produced by 0w1-3Y3 (Matthew L. Morgan) in honor of his daughter, Annabelle.

"Head Up, Chin Down"

Why I Am a Pacifist

Why I am a Pacifist

(In no particular order.)

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

— Chief Seattle

"Return your sword to its place, for all who will take up the sword, will die by the sword."

— Matthew 26:32

"Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets."

— Matthew 7:12

"You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD."

— Leviticus 19:18

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."

—  Shabbath folio:31a, Babylonian Talmud

"We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if  he saved the life of the whole people."

— Qur’an 5:32

"We shall strive not to cause harm of any kind.

We will live in and be a servant to all that is good..."

— Commands of the Seven Buddhas

"We will be reverential and mindful with all life; We will not kill or be ruled by violence."

— The Ten Precepts [Buddhism (Chobo-Ji Version)]

"There is the case where a certain person, abandoning the taking of life, abstains from the taking of life. He dwells with his rod laid down, his knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, compassionate for the welfare of all living beings. Abandoning the taking of what is not given, he abstains from taking what is not given. He does not take, in the manner of a thief, things in a village or a wilderness that belong to others and have not been given by them." — the Pāli Canon (Buddhism)

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."

— Thomas A. Edison

Just for the record, I am a pacifist and have absolutely no desire to fight against any system of authority, nor to hurt anyone, ever, for any reason. Other people must live and play out their own karma. I am also done generating negative karma for myself by trying to help people with information who clearly don't want to be helped. (I have removed most of the material I have been posting, out of fear of being "flagged" or eventually targeted as an enemy of the state, even though my desire has never been other than to promote peace, stability, and justice, and 'We the People' upholding the Constitution and principles of the Declaration of Independence. As a soldier and law enforcement officer, I swore a solemn oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, not realizing I was unknowingly an accomplice to those engaged in an agenda with the "side-effect" of egregiously undermining  the ratified Amendments to the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence).