If you are going to be a martyr for a cause worth sacrificing everything for, it had better be enough to change the whole of an evil conspiracy. Someone could just as easily end up like those who set themselves on fire in protest to the Vietnam and Iraq wars, shocking, but they did not have lasting impact. Men and women have to live w…
If you are going to be a martyr for a cause worth sacrificing everything for, it had better be enough to change the whole of an evil conspiracy. Someone could just as easily end up like those who set themselves on fire in protest to the Vietnam and Iraq wars, shocking, but they did not have lasting impact. Men and women have to live with their consciences. Personally I have a tendency to channel Thoreau or Voltaire/Candide; no sense making a mortal sacrifice for those who would never appreciate it anyway. Sacrificing wealth to the detriment of one's progeny? Most children of financially successful people get spoiled by free money when they inherit it, and while alive the wealth can be a constant source of ill feelings or false entitlement; better to donate most of it to something one believes in.
How much pain is one willing to shoulder in life, where we have had many examples of those who lived through excruciating situations and ordeals? I'd rather feel pain as a price of being fully alive than in a cowardly fashion use things to mask reality. I had a workman's comp case where as a day laborer I had hired another day laborer for minimal profits where he was hit by a hit and run driver as if it had been deliberate as the Jamaican was raking leaves off the curb when he was hit. Fortunately there was a witness and the teenaged son of a wealthy family was charged; but the law and the family blamed me until the case got to court.
The courts may be the last remedy and should be utilized as much as possible by the innocent against the guilty. Jesus never had that option and he was prosecuted by very powerful forces hanging on the position there was only one God. In America the trial of Jesus or Socrates, for that matter, would have resulted in acquittals and then they would have been able to counter-sue for malicious prosecution as well as defamation/slander.
If you are going to be a martyr for a cause worth sacrificing everything for, it had better be enough to change the whole of an evil conspiracy. Someone could just as easily end up like those who set themselves on fire in protest to the Vietnam and Iraq wars, shocking, but they did not have lasting impact. Men and women have to live with their consciences. Personally I have a tendency to channel Thoreau or Voltaire/Candide; no sense making a mortal sacrifice for those who would never appreciate it anyway. Sacrificing wealth to the detriment of one's progeny? Most children of financially successful people get spoiled by free money when they inherit it, and while alive the wealth can be a constant source of ill feelings or false entitlement; better to donate most of it to something one believes in.
How much pain is one willing to shoulder in life, where we have had many examples of those who lived through excruciating situations and ordeals? I'd rather feel pain as a price of being fully alive than in a cowardly fashion use things to mask reality. I had a workman's comp case where as a day laborer I had hired another day laborer for minimal profits where he was hit by a hit and run driver as if it had been deliberate as the Jamaican was raking leaves off the curb when he was hit. Fortunately there was a witness and the teenaged son of a wealthy family was charged; but the law and the family blamed me until the case got to court.
The courts may be the last remedy and should be utilized as much as possible by the innocent against the guilty. Jesus never had that option and he was prosecuted by very powerful forces hanging on the position there was only one God. In America the trial of Jesus or Socrates, for that matter, would have resulted in acquittals and then they would have been able to counter-sue for malicious prosecution as well as defamation/slander.