Equality

When I look at why the west, as in Northern America and Western Europe, has a better standard of living the difference that matters, in my opinion, is the way we treat wome and minorities. The attempts we continue to make to provide equal opportunity and to give a hand up to those who have not had equal opportunities is what gives us the little extra that keeps improving our standard of living. I didn't look up the quote, but I remember Martin Luther King saying something along the lines of 'where there is injustice for one there is injustice for all'.

There's also the idea from women's liberation that if women are oppressed, then men are held back from being all tha they can be. Freedom, justice, equality are not just nice ideas that we follow when they're easy, they are beacons that we can hold up to the world. The problem that we've been having in Iraq is that we are not holding the beacon we are trying to get by as close to the line as possible. The whole idea that we would discuss water-boarding as less than torture is repugnant to the ideals upon which this nation was founded.

That we've not always lived up to our ideals is unfortunate and very human. That doesn't make the ideals less important or the attempt unsuccessful. We are not at the end of the road, but we have begun the journey. And every step we take towards the goal, even if we slip and slide back a little, is movement that continues the journey which we began what seems so long ago.