a random thought

Here is a quote from a philosopher named Richard Rorty that I pulled out of Stanley Hauerwas' book After Christendom? :

Accommodation and tolerance must stop short of a willingness to work within any vocabulary which one's interlocutor wishes to use, to take seriously any topic which he puts forward for discussion. To take this view is of a piece with dropping the idea that a single moral vocabulary and a single set of moral beliefs are appropriate for every human community everywhere, and to grant that historical developments may lead us to simply drop questions, and the vocabulary in which those questions are posed. Just as Jefferson refused to let the Christian Scriptures set the terms in which to discuss alternative political institutions, so we must either refuse to answer the question "what sort of human being are you hoping to produce?" or at least, must not let our answer to this question dictate our answer to the question "Is justice primary?" It is no more evident that democratic institution are to be measured by the sort of person they create than that they are to be measured against divine commands. . . . Even if the typical character-type of liberal democracies are bland, calculating, petty and unheroic, the prevalence of such people may nevertheless be a reasonable price to pay for political freedom. (pp. 32-33) "Page 78 of Hauerwas"

Do Americans ever think about what kind of people our democracy produces? Or do we start to think that politics is only about the distribution of our taxes towards the municipalities? I believe that I follow Hauerwas in thinking that politics is about producing people, to be brief about it. I also think that George Will was saying this in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does.

What kind of people does our consumer/capitalist liberal democracy produce? Are we bland, calculating, petty and unheroic?

Even more pressing, are "citizens" of the United States, whose very nation is very young and yet obviously not Utopia nor anything near Utopia, whose beginnings could be called "the great experiment" able to again look into the future and gaze at what could be or are they stuck in the idea that it needs to produce as it has?

I wonder . . .

Oppression is an interesting thing. According to Wikipedia oppression is the act of using power to enpower one group while marginalizing another group, then makes a note that this could happen on individual levels. Wikipedia also states that the term derives from the idea of being weighted down.

I wonder about oppression often. I wonder if there is such a thing as justifiable oppression. Is the actions that are used by businesses to not hire felons a justifiable oppression, simply oppression, or a just act that all felons need to get used to.

If a stat can be said that 95% of felons commit another felony, does that mean that there is something inherint within their dna that will automatically cause them to commit crimes, are they unable to not commit crimes, are they unable to live life within the means of the law? Or does it have something to do with the just act of not being able to find meaningful employment?

I believe that it is a form of oppression. I believe that this oppression can happen on individual levels as well as to a group. I would also add that the legal system and consequences happen differently to different people, that no two people are really treated the same according the ways that the world works.

Some people make it big while others fall. Some peoples dreams are realized while other peoples nightmares are realized. The wicked and deceitful prosper while the righteous are persecuted and are impoverished.

What I am saying to any who read the post, there is oppression in America. And that you should never judge or make judgement on someone's life because of what you may think works for everybody. There is such a thing as the extraordinary.