I love people. I really prefer humans and interacting with them over just about any other activity in this world. I only like computers because they make communication easier, so all my writing here on computers is really about helping people communicate. If computers are a thing unto themselves, a discrete and separate goal, then they are useless. Everything else in this world, every great endeavor and effort, is only so useful as it helps people.
If I could go to Egypt and solve any problems, for even a small handful of people, I’d pack a bag right now. I have no idea how I’d get there, but that’s not the point. When I feel that certainty of imperative burning in my spirit, I don’t worry much about earthly consequences, except I would refuse to harm anyone else on the way. I don’t have that driving imperative, so I’m staying where I am.
There is no question the current ruling regime of Egypt is very harmful to the citizens. The protesting is utterly justified. When all you offer is an iron-fisted order, chaos is better. Chaos is not evil, and human nature will guarantee a new order arises every time. The only thing preventing a better order arising is some other thug trying to gain oppressive control over the same people. Once they get rid of one thug, so long as they perceive any new leader as no better, chaos will be the result.
That is, unless they are meek and stupid like most Americans. My fellow Americans are mostly drugged out or in some other way living in a fantasy. So they either wish this protesting in Egypt would go away, and fearfully wonder whether it could spread to other places, like maybe — God forbid — here, or they are cheering as they would for their favorite home team in the Super Bowl. It’s very entertaining for a day or two. And if something new happens, it remains somewhat entertaining. Meanwhile, our very own president has threatened to ignore a valid court judgment, usurping the Constitutional separation of powers. This talk of forcing through his health care abomination regardless of any judges’ rulings is a genuine constitutional crisis. Nobody much notices. You certainly won’t get that from the mainstream news, and most Americans hardly understand the issues. They are more worried about the bread and circuses.
Today in Egypt the hired thugs have begun a counter-protest, but using weapons. To be honest, I don’t know enough details about Egypt to do much more than observe. The point is, I know I don’t know. I know I could read an awful lot of stuff and maybe get some idea of what’s going on, but I’m not sure my intellect is big enough to make much of it, short of embarking on a Masters level college course on Egyptian history, culture and politics, by which time they would have settled into some new routine. I am not driven to know Egypt that well. What I do know very well is human nature, and what is the most beneficial handling of human needs. The degree I already have covers that.
What I do understand covers Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and all the other countries as well. The political details will always elude us, because we can’t be there on the ground in each country. Even those already there may not really know, and talking heads on TV most certainly do not really know. That much is unshakably certain, because that’s human nature. I’ve already written at length what is necessary for a good life on this earth, at both the individual and governmental level. So while I admit there is an entertainment factor in the news reports, from any source you choose regarding all the protests and revolutions, I don’t cheer them on.
That’s because things being what they are, as long as nobody is fighting for the right stuff, whatever they end up with won’t be that much better in the long run. The protests are justified, and even so much as Egyptians lynching the police forces, particularly the security police, is fully just and right in God’s eyes. But that won’t bring much more than temporary relief. Not because the forces of evil are so almighty powerful, but they are stronger than any effort to throw them off so long as those efforts don’t aim at something genuinely better. What I fully understand already is the underlying moral fabric of the cosmos, and they aren’t even trying to grab hold of that. There are elements of truth in what they seek, but they don’t want enough of that truth to expect a good result.
Some will win good results from all this rioting; most will lose. Whether Mubarak steps down or continues his tyranny, Egypt will not likely get good government any time soon. Nor will we. But because the whole Creation is currently convulsing over a great weight of injustice and evil, there will be a lot of unrest everywhere in the world for a good long while. We live in interesting times, very entertaining, but there’s nothing worth cheering.
