I think about what has become of the world today. When my wife and go out on Sunday morning for breakfast with our pup we always meet some real dog lovers. I have always thought that dog lovers were the best people in the world that will treat the people around them as well as they treat their own dog. Have I been misjudging dog lovers? I always thought that a man that did not love dogs would not be a good person in the White House. Bill Clinton was not a dog lover and look at the mess he got into. Trump was definitely not a dog lover and he was a real mess. Dogs teach us just as much as we teach them. They teach us valuable lessons on love and loyalty. One of the problems is that there are a lot of bad dog owners. A lot of dog owners will whip and beat their dogs thinking that they can beat them into submission. There are some people that use that same philosophy on other people.

As I saw those pictures of the Officers whipping the Haitian immigrants I was shocked. What makes men think that they have the  right to treat another human being that way. I saw a video of a man standing handcuffed and a Officer just walk past him and busted him in the mouth so hard it sent the man to the ground. How can people treat other people that way? Never have I ever seen anything that says that these action are appropriate. Where have we learned that this is how you act when you are in authority? This is how plantation overseers treated and broke slaves into submission. Is that what police officers think that their job is to beat people into submission? That is how the Nazi’s treated the Jews. That is how the black slavers treated there slaves. Have we learned so little from history. The whole world is seeing those videos and those pictures. How can we tell the rest of the world how to act when they see things like a police just cold cocking a handcuffed man. They can just look at us and say look who is calling the kettle black. To some, the answer would be to hide the evidence, don’t let them see the pictures. In today’s digital age that is next to impossible. A better solution would be not to do the suppression and oppression in the first place.

I grew up in a Lutheran household and my parents took me to Sunday school while they attended church. It was always a treat to listen to our head Pastor Dr. Siersbeck when he would come and talk to us. He would tell us stories of people helping other people and of all the love that he had witness. They were such wonderful stories that left you truly inspired and hopeful for people. That was 60 years ago and I wonder what in the hell happened? The love that he talked about was helping the poor. The love he was talking about was looking out for your fellow man. All that today seems to have disappeared from much of the church. It is that hate that drove me from the church. It is all the judging and suppression and none of the lifting up. God will protect us was a battle cry during the crusades. Have we not learned anything in the thousand years since then. When the church is telling you that God will protect you from the deadly virus they are lying to you. What they are tell you is that god only punishes the unworthy and if you die it was because you are unworthy. That is not an uplifting message. In reality all they want is your money. To them god’s blessing can be bought through them and that is just a crock.

 I still believe that the church could be a big part of the solution for us. That church would have to be the church of Rev. Siersbeck the church that I grew up in and not the church of Franklin Graham. If we are going to call ourselves a Christian Society we should be working with compassion not oppression. Every day I still think of the lessons I learned from my youth and many of them are from my religious background. Someone asked me if I believed that Jesus was the son of god. My answer was that it didn’t matter. His words were so powerful that they changed the world. Is it important that he is the son of god or is it important that he gave us a message on how we are suppose to live? I like the message and it is not important to me who he is the son of. It has been over 2000 years and his message is still there but too many people have stopped listen.

We know the right things to do so why do we not just do them? That is a question that I always wrestle with. In my world the 1% is not meant to rule the 99%. In my world all people should be treated fairly. In my world I do not begrudge a person the rewards for their great ideas and their hard work as long as they do not suppress and oppress just to get richer. How rich is rich enough? If you are worth billions and the people that helped you make those billions live in poverty is that really the message that we have been hearing for over 2000 years?