Can we live without our noses?

Our human concepts and values keep changing. Thank gawd. We Americans, for instance, used to think it was all right to have a slave economy. And that it was okay to deny women and blacks their civil rights until well into the 20th century. Think about it. At one time, feudalism prevailed on Earth. And kings ruled by divine right. But the nice thing is that eventually we saw the light. We change. And we do the right thing. Often, it's a very gradual process. A bit of enlightenment here and there. Some of us like living in a rut. We don't want to change. Because we like the world as it is. Usually, because it gives us some kind of advantage over others. The American capitalist system, for instance. It allows individuals to get rich. Very, very monetarily rich. And that creates a society in which the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Yes, a big, big gap between the haves and the have-nots. And we've been taught that's perfectly all right. A good thing. That greed is good. That money trickles down from the top. And so everybody benefits. Of course, that's a crock of crap. But so many of us believe it. If we're told white is black and black is white often enough, we believe it. Like robots. We've been told that socialism is bad. Capitalism is good. We're told that Sarah Palin would be well-qualified to lead the free world if John McCain suddenly died in office. And we're told that Barack Obama cavorts with terrorists and that he's totally unfit to be president. That if he got elected, it would be one of the worst decisions we Americans ever made. Yes, so many of us believe almost everything we're told. We are gullible. If not downright stupid. We'd cut off our noses to spite our faces. --Jim Broede