Lessons in morality begin to trickle down from the day we are born. For the first seven years of life, we take in what is happening around us in the culture we were born into. This largely is influenced by how our parents deal with the world, which in turn becomes our way of dealing with the world.  

Some have been taught to respect their elders no matter what. And others were taught that women have less value than men. Some believe that the color of one’s skin is a reason to dehumanize an entire culture. Some believe that a person with a large sum of money has a higher level of intelligence. Some believe that a person’s age indicates their value to society, such as an elderly person, because of their advanced age, being no longer a viable contributor.

By questioning and examining these and similar concepts, a person can create a path that better fits the moral values they have of their own.

I grew up respecting our elected officials. They were the embodiment of wisdom that could affect the evolution and safety of our country. Maintaining the country’s integrity the goal. That was at a time when elected officials followed the guidance of the Constitution and how it had been laid out by men of wisdom who put down the words of the founding documents so that they would illuminate a path of self-government.

The Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, is a small group of citizens in charge of overseeing and assuring these principles are upheld. We should not confuse the wisdom of these people sitting on this court at this time as having the same foresight as our forefathers who designed this experiment in the first place.

The Constitution was not meant to be the end-all document but could and should evolve with the times. Over the life of this document, many amendments have been implemented to complement the evolution of our country. Allowing the Constitution to keep up to date with how we as a culture have grown and to better guide us in how we live with each other with respect and equality. That changed when the Supreme Court, in its limited foresight, voted to allow unlimited money into how elections were financed. Slowly, our system of government has become more focused on capitalism and less on being a representative government of the people. Inspired by this system current leaders have become more interested in creating money flows for themselves than creating a better future for all those living in this country. Treating the country like a business rather than a Republic. We pay taxes each year in a socialist manner so that our government can finance all of the many facets involved in the original goal of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all its citizenry. One of those facets is to pay the salaries of all those officials elected to govern and who swear an oath to the entire document, the Constitution. It is odd that those same people, many Millionaires themselves, request more money from its citizens so they can keep their jobs without spending their own money. It’s also disturbing that these same people seem to become much richer by the end of their term.

There is a fear that because of this unlimited flow of money into our elections, our country could become an autocracy but if you look with a discerning eye, we are already well on our way.

Imagine for a moment if we were to demand that anyone wishing to run for office in our government that that person be required to have at least five years of experience as a teacher in public education.  

Our children and all those wishing for a higher education would benefit immensely from an administration with that background. Imagine if the requirement was for a person to have a social work background. The care for the poor and underprivileged would be Christ-like.

Now try and imagine that a person couldn’t run for office unless they were a millionaire; how do you see our country evolving then? It currently doesn’t take much imagination at all.

Can you see the trickle-down morality that is occurring at present? It appears that the country’s current moral values are one of, “If you can make money at it, then it’s ok, no matter what the cost to the environment or the people being displaced”. A vision for the future of our republic that includes everyone equally doesn’t seem to exist. In fact seems to becoming less inclusive.It appears we have not learned the very lessons that our country’s history has given us, lessons that our forefathers tried to put into words.

  There was a time in our country’s history when it became illegal for one person to own another person. Many fortunes that exist today came from that period of the free use of slave labor. But what of modern-day slavery? How about paying a person just enough money to exist but not prosper? Only to be cast aside when a cheaper form of labor is implemented either by technology or by moving a business to a country that respects labor even less. And what of a woman forced by her government to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term against her will? Is this not a form of slavery? And why is the woman the only one being penalized?

  Nobody is born a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Islamist, or even a racist. It is the environment and culture that a person is born into that lays the foundation of those philosophies. The trickle-down morality of these philosophies becomes part of us and how we deal with the world as a whole. But because we have free will, we can evaluate those philosophies and choose a way that intuitively feels better for our lifes journey. This will never be easy, and a lot of push back can be expected, even becoming an outcast from those cultures. When you choose a way of living that better fits your moral values you create a higher vibration for yourself and then that morality will trickle down from you and ripple out into the world around you.

It’s always your choice.