ten billion butterfly sneezes

Ten minutes into the Candidates Forum on Service presidential forum now airing on MSNBC, and I’m wondering whether or not the title of this post might not be a more fitting theme.

McCain just spoke; I assume Obama is next. McCain just heralded the creation of the Department of Homeland Security as a landmark of reform of government, and bipartisan cooperation. McCain gasses on, after the break, but I doubt I’ll be able to discern much difference between the two.

Guess what? I don’t give a rip for either of these mopes. I’m not afraid; I wasn’t afraid on 9/11, and I’m not now. If a storm bears down, MLB and I will provide for ourselves as best we can, and we’ll help out our neighbors, again as best we can. I need no government to encourage me, subsidize me, or offer their dubious notion of “help”.

In other words, Leave us Alone. The vast majority of people in the United States are capable of the same thing; neighbor helping neighbor, the way it’s been forever. It can’t be mandated from above, at least not by the Washington bureaucrats. It comes from a calling outside of each of us, and yet obviously of a plane somehow different than the one we’re on. Some of us call it Christianity, some a religion that’s not Christian.

It all boils down to this; every religion has some notion of the Golden Rule. Those who are atheists have a compass that guides them to something beyond; I call that something God; they don’t. The strong truth of the Golden Rule crosses these boundaries.

And if I’m on the receiving end of help, I won’t ask about the caregiver’s religious affiliation. Nor will I preach to those whom I’m blessed to help. Obama has yet to speak; like McCain, you have no need to incent, if that’s even a word, behavior that’s beneficial to all.

Service is its own reward. To everyone, just because.

-k-