Well, it's just like integrity and "honor"

An admirable quality in others



Kidding, I found out I had to have all of these qualities in order to stay sober and not want to blow my brains out.

Over the course of many years I have had innumerable occasions where people "gush" about my honesty and integrity, but the truth is, in the tiny part I do in fact posses these qualities it's not because I am strong, but because I am weak.

When I start down that road, and I do and have, it doesn't end until I get very sick and the wheels fall off.

So it's best if I just cut it off at the pass.

However:

I think it's 100% to do with being honest with ourselves

to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man

If I lie to others I lie to myself

What are my motives? It's about self searching and checking in with those who love me (sponsor and support group)

Where was I selfish, self seeking dishonest and frightened?

Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.

Telling my wife she has a giant can falls under harm done to others

If I get pulled over by the Police, I tell the truth, but admittedly I am not entirely honest with the tax man or the Insurance agent, as I view those two entities as strong arm robbers, If someone holds me up and takes my wallet I don't tell them I have $200 in my front pocket either.

In the Ring this is called leading with my chin.

I, however, check with others frequently

Anyhow, just about all of chapter 6 is about this, so I am unable to narrow it down past this statement:

to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man

Says that right on them lil medallion thingies they give me every year


-- Edited by AGO on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 09:14:02 PM

Larry_H wrote:

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AGO wrote:

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If I get pulled over by the Police, I tell the truth, but admittedly I am not entirely honest with the tax man or the Insurance agent, as I view those two entities as strong arm robbers, If someone holds me up and takes my wallet I don't tell them I have $200 in my front pocket either.

In the Ring this is called leading with my chin.

---

We are taught are we not that we should not harm others.  If we are not entirely honest with the insurance man or tax man are we not harming others by causing them to pay more?

Just a question nothing more.

Larry,

 

 

---

Yeah that is the logic of all extortionists, if you don't pay it must come from someone else. I don't steal from them, nor take what is rightfully theirs, for example I pay my Insurance, but after many many years dealing with Insurance Companies professionally I have watched them steal from homeowners and car owners regularly. People who have paid their insurance faithfully for 20-30 years in some cases denied their money due them on some chickenshit technicality.

I have seen this repeatedly with my own eyes. repeatedly.

Both following up calls as a paramedic and dealing with "acts of God" with my own business where trees fall on houses and destroy them. No matter how many forestry reports we fill out, Insurance Companies won't pay to remove a dangerous tree, and then when it falls they try to get out of paying and pay as little as possible of the damage it caused when it fell.

They do everything they can to not pay and then drop you if you have an accident (even if it's not your fault) or an act of God happens at your house and if they kep you they hike your rates. There are reputable Insurance companies, State Farm and Farmers always take good care of their clients in my experience, but many Insurance Companies are shysters.

Same thing with Credit card companies with their 21% interest rates to fund credit card theft, which they don't pursue, they just hit the public with exorbitant interest rates because it's cheaper and makes more income for them, there are some good articles about it. What is the interest rate before it becomes usury? These are companies that prey on the weakness of humanity, and gambling with disasters, and passing laws by their lobby groups disguised as "for our safety" followed by propaganda campaigns they pay for at the level of press radio and film, and as such, deserve as little of my money as possible.

Legalized Theft is still theft.


-- Edited by AGO on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 10:44:16 PM

I see what you are getting at in the original post.  We do not become Perfect Pat.  There are grey areas.  I have one that comes up at work regarding others taking and my giving of  shift drinks and feebies to regulars.  There is policy, but the owners themselves do not always follow.  After discussing it with sponsor, in this case I have to check my motivations(always) and make the best judgement possible in many cases.  I usually know there is something wrong if I feel icky and thoughts keep coming back into my mind.  I try not to think about what others do that are wrong or dishonest.  I can't use that to justify myself.  It can be tricky.  I don't think I need to harm others with excessive honesty-"honey I know you like that hat, but you look ridiculous-take it off"  There's a time to keep a mouth shut.  I was told I'll know when I am following a path of honesty, because the light will be shining and I will know peace.  If not, continue to work at it.

I believe that little things like pointing out wrong change in my favor lead to better things for myself.  Karma is such a satisfying way to accept the bad behavior of others. 

Now doesn't that sound goody goody!  I can't help it-working the steps are turning me into a better person, despite myself!  Watch:(to paraphrase- work the steps, get a better life)

When it comes to dealing with others....there MUST be honesty with sensitivity. That is why the "does this dress make me look fat?" question doesn't necessarily get a fully true answer. Also, lying is a protective measure which keeps others away when we don't feel safe or want to get close to them. For example, if someone asks me how I am when I feel crappy and I say "Fine" I am lying, but I don't want them close to me and don't want them to be part of my vulnerability. In this aspect, lying has an adaptive quality. Anyhow, it is my belief that taken to the nth degree, any characteristic can become negative in some way. I also think that the honesty needed in recovery is mostly honesty with self...With that, honest with others comes naturally.

I think the rigorous honesty has to take place with ones self.
This is something we all struggle with to a certain degree.
I believe the nature of the alcoholic is a delusional one. Why else would we need a sponsor? I know personally that I can talk myself into anything. Justification and rationalization can be very good friends.
I used to analyze these paragraphs in How It Works and wonder if I was a lost cause. I tried so hard to "get it" and never seemed to be happy and serene. I was spiritually disconnected.
It seems that only when I let go and stop trying that I do understand the principles of the program. This program works for me when I allow it to.
Just my thoughts on this whole getting honest deal!

Maybe I wasn't clear

To Thine own self be true is the maxim I follow

Not "situational ethics"

I am not a liar, cheat or thief, a saying that has come to us from NA, yes I have done these things, but they don't "define" me as who I am today.

Sometimes I go over the speed limit if it's safe

If I work an "cash/under the table" job I don't necessarily phone The IRS and volunteer a third of it

Sometimes I don't wear my seat belt if I am just puttering around <35 mph

I live by my own ethics and I live up to the best of my own humanity, and I work 6 and 7 to the best of my ability, I check in with others, and like angelov8 says if something feels wrong I don't do it.

If I feel I have done harm to others i talk to another human being and make amends ASAP

I am not a liar, cheat OR thief, not to myself, and not to others

Have I done these things in the past?

Absolutely

Do I judge myself by my actions rather then my intentions?

absolutely

Am I perfect?

absolutely not

am I willing to try?

absolutely

Am I willing to continue growing as a human being?

absolutely

It's just I am not swayed by others "ethics" such as credit cards, The IRS and Insurance Companies, because as far as I am concerned they don't have any.

I have no respect for institutions built on extortion and Usury, no matter how good their propaganda corps are, or what the idiot box (television which I don't watch) says we are supposed to do, and how many laws they pass "for our safety", seatbelt tickets, insurance companies, and credit card companies are no different then "The Rackets" by organized crime, they exist solely to make money, so I avoid them whenever possible, and since they pass laws to make them "requirements" they are extortion. Our political system, propaganda system and lobbyists at work.

I don't steal from them, I avoid them.

That's not "situational ethics"

It's being true to myself

Do I have "cash register" honesty?

absolutely

If someone overpays me do I give it back to them?

All the time, both in my business when I had it and if I get too much change in a restaurant. I was WELL known as more then scrupulously honest when I owned my own business, and I would refuse overpayment all the time.

I would give a "windowed bid" say for example between 1200-1500 dollars for a day, I would tell them 12 at the end of the day if they tried to pay me 15 i would refuse it. If it was 15 I wouldn't take 12 either.

To thine own self be true.

we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be.

I am incredibly anal about it because it's my job to be true to myself.

Honesty without love is cruelty

There are ways to say an outfit isn't flattering without saying yeah, it makes you look fat.

Good generalship may decide that the problem be attacked on the flank rather than risk a face-to- face combat.

Hence, I don't lead with my chin

I'm sober not brainless LOL

Sometimes the good is the enemy of the best, and yeah there are ethical dilemmas we encounter sometimes with no clear cut answers, hence counsel with others, prayers and meditation, and still getting it wrong sometimes but being willing to grow and do better next time.

One example is when I got sober this last time I lost my drivers license for a year, the only way to get it back was attend a school an hour away, also 2 nights a week there was an AA meeting one hour away, and one or two nights a week there was an AA meeting 2 hours away.

I sat down and thought for a long time. I NEEDED to go to meetings or I would drink again, and for me to drink was to die.

I drove to those. I made the decision I would keep my insurance, but I needed to save my life. I rode my bicycle in town, but drove to get to meetings.

I got pulled over a month from getting my license, the officer said "How are you tonight sir?"

"Well, I am f***ed" I replied

He smiled and said why is that

I said, well, I am driving on a suspended license

He said son, you're right, you are f***ed

I explained I was a sober alcoholic driving home from DUI school and attending a meeting. I showed my signatures and explained how I was living hours away from the school or meetings, and why I was driving to them.

Long story short, he let me go. He asked me how much longer until I got my license, and how long it had been since my last drink. He said to make other arrangements or drive a different route for the next month.

He then shook my hand, we talked for awhile (i worked with the chp a good bit as a paramedic, I didn't tell him that until afterwards though, but he was an old guy so we swapped stories, like the time I called the CHP helicopter to a nude beach and the patient was getting CPR from 6 naked nurses, for some reason they still remember me for that and that story at the CHP, then he bid me good night and let me go

To me all of this falls under being honest with myself



-- Edited by AGO on Wednesday 7th of April 2010 07:58:35 PM

angelov8 wrote:

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Honestly,
Maybe a gutter mind but I find I want to hear the 6 naked nurse story, What??!!
CHP?(what is that?) Nude beaches?  Where?  Naked nurses? No comment without more info.

---

The CHP is the California Highway Patrol, I guess they are a bit like State Troopers in other states, but all they do is traffic safety.

I was a cliff rescue paramedic in a small town in northern California and right south of town is a pretty well known nude beach, on the day in question I got a call about a drowning victim, the truth is my partner was AWOL,  so when I responded to the call I was alone, and had to run 1.5 miles down a pretty steep like mountain goat path with 2 medical bags, an oxygen tank and a "board", like a 6 ft board used to transport patients.

The patient needed CPR and there was no way for me to pack him out and up the cliffs alone, and there just happened to be a number of respiratory therapists and nurses from a hospital in SF there, it wasn't my fault they all happened to be all incredibly young and attractive.....and.....naked.

It happened to be low tide so there was enough beach for a helicoptor to land so I called for one, and The Coast Guard heli and REACH (medevac) heli's were both busy so CHP sent a helicoptor, they didn't have ALS (advanced life support) but what I did do was ask them to come anyway and fly the patient up the cliffs to a waiting ALS ambulance.

For some reason the CHP Officers were useless on scene, wandering around gaping (it was a holiday weekend and there were 100's of beautiful naked women running around) including the 6 performing CPR.

Anyhow, for the next many years, somehow this story took on the stuff of legend, and somehow all these naked women took on the the qualities of Pamela Anderson or something, and whenever there were multi-agency training seminars and Heli demos etc these Officers would run up and hug me and beg me to call them again and tell everyone the story.

Truthfully off duty I went to that beach when i was off duty to play naked ultimate frisbee since there was a game every day so it didn't even blip on my radar but for some reason it got these lads attention.

Larry_H wrote:

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We are taught are we not that we should not harm others. 

---

So Larry, I have a question, this is purely in fun, merely a mental exercise

I think your question concerned ethics as opposed to rigorous honesty, or honesty to oneself, the question of our actions harming others.

 

What's your take on funding terrorism? Child slavery? Oppression? destruction of the Earth and the eradication of small farmers? of funding torture and inhumane working conditions? of causing cancer in hundreds of thousands of people?

 

I am guessing you are against these things

Do you drink Coca Cola? Do you shop at Supermarkets and Chain Stores? Do you buy products made in China? Do you drive a car, and thus buy Gas?  Do you eat chocolate? Do you wear Nikes? Do you shop at Walmart? Do you buy gas at Chevron? Exxon?

These are just a few actions we take as Americans that directly harm others, as in kill, torture, maim, give cancer to, kidnap, oppress, destroy crops and rain forest, wipe out small farmers reducing them to poverty, poison the Earth, the list goes on and on

Now don't get me wrong, I am no "Earth First" tree hugging activist, but I try to pay attention to where my money goes, if it gets too inconvenient, I will buy gas at a Chevron, I am not perfect.

But I think it has a lot to do with perspective, If I see a little fat kid drinking a coke eating a chocolate bar wearing Nikes wearing clothes purchased from Walmart that are washed in appliances purchased in China while riding around in an SUV fueled by gas purchased from Chevron, I see a huge swath of destruction, I see poverty and oppression, I see murder, torture and corporate profits, I see child slavery and child labor and cancer to untold thousands and thousands upon thousands of infant deaths being directly funded.

That's right

Coca Cola

chocolate

So when we hand a smiling child a chocolate easter egg and a coke, do we know many people were enslaved, diseased or even murdered to get that coke and chocolate?

When someone buys Nestles chocolate they are directly responsible for funding an organization that employs child slave laborers and is directly responsible for uncounted thousands upon thousands infant deaths.

When someone buys any product made in China they are directly funding a regime directly responsible for horrific human rights violations including murder and torture.

When someone drinks any Coca Cola product they are directly funding violent killings, kidnap and torture, water privatization, health violations, and discriminatory practices and wiping out entire regions of India and indian sustenance farmers and their villages.

When someone shops at Walmart they support all of the above and are actively funding the destruction of America how we know it. Making a nation of serfs and peasants who are trained at work how to file for food stamps and medical.

ExxonMobil paid no U.S. income taxes last year, despite reaping a record $45 billion profit, Forbes reports. By using legal accounting methods and Caribbean tax shelters, the energy giant was able to avoid paying a cent to the IRS. At the same time, it complains about its tax burden.

Update: Exxon clarifies that it did pay U.S. taxes last year (it won't say how much). It continues to use offshore tax shelters and moan about its tax burden.

So how far do we take "we are taught we should not harm others" with our actions because as we all know "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.

So when we shop at the local supermarket when we buy produce we support companies such as Mansanto, who are responsible for:

Human Rights Abuses: Displacement, health violations, and child labor

Monsanto is, by far, the largest producer of genetically engineered seeds in the world, dominating 70% to 100% of the market for crops such as soy, cotton, wheat, and corn. The company is also one of the most egregious abusers of the human rights of food sovereignty, access to land, and health.

Monsanto promotes mono-culturethe practice of covering large swaths of land with a single crop. This practice pushes out subsistence farms and destroys arable land by drastically decreasing soil and water quality for years, draining soil of key nutrients. The company also undercuts food prices by flooding countries like Mexico, India, and Brazil with cheap, genetically modified foods, resulting in the displacement of millions of farm workers, who are forced to migrate to cities or work as landless peasants or share croppers.

Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as "Roundup." Roundup is sold to small farmers as a pesticide, yet harms crops in the long run as the toxins accumulate in the soil. Plants eventually become infertile, forcing farmers to purchase genetically modified Roundup Ready Seed, a seed that resists the herbicide. This creates a cycle of dependency on Monsanto for both the weed killer and the only seed that can resist it. Both products are patented, and sold at inflated prices.

Roundup Ultra, a version of the pesticide that is unavailable on the commercial market, is regularly employed in fumigation of areas of illicit crop production. However, as it destroys fields of drug plants, it also destroys subsistence crops like banana, palm heart, and coffee. Exposure to the pesticide is documented to cause cancers, skin disorders, spontaneous abortions, premature births, and damage to the gastrointestinal and nervous systems.

According to the India Committee of the Netherlands and the International Labor Rights Fund, Monsanto also employs child labor. In India, an estimated 12,375 children work in cottonseed production for farmers paid by Indian and multinational seed companies, including Monsanto. A number of children have died or became seriously ill due to exposure to pesticides.

Monsanto's yearly profits are $5.4 billion.

when we buy a Coca Cola we support "Human Rights Abuses: violent killings, kidnap and torture, water privatization, health violations, and discriminatory practices

for example:Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing. In Turkey, 14 Coca-Cola truck drivers and their families were beaten severely by Turkish police hired by the company, while protesting a layoff of 1,000 workers from a local bottling plant in 2005.

In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population. Water shortages have occurred in Varanasi, Thane, and Tamil Nadu as well. The company is also guilty of reselling its plants' industrial waste to farmers as fertilizers, despite its containing hazardous lead and cadmium.

Nestle's

Human Rights Violations: Abusive child labor, repression of worker rights, aggressive marketing of harmful products, violation of national health and environmental lawsThere's a secret in the chocolate industry, and once people find out about it, their chocolate doesn't taste as sweet any more: Much of the chocolate eaten all over the world is made of cocoa beans that have been harvested by illegal child labor, including child slave labor.

The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the chocolate industry, because more than forty percent of the world's cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms in what's been described as the worst form of child labor. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each. Just this summer, the International Labor Rights Fund and a Birmingham law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé and several of its suppliers on behalf of former child slaves.

Nestlé is the target of this lawsuit and is singled out by corporate campaigners, because it is the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, has processing, storage and export facilities there, and is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestlé and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.

Nestlé is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in poor countries the 1980s, which may have led to the deaths of countless children who did not receive the nutrients that would have been present in breast milk. Because of this practice, Nestlé is still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized more than two million liters of Nestlé infant formula that was contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX), a component in the packaging's ink. It turned out the company knew about the contamination for months, but did not recall the formula.

Additionally, violations of labor rights are reported from Nestlé factories in numerous countries. In Colombia, Nestlé replaced the entire factory staff with lower-wage workers and did not renew the collective employment contract. In Cabuyao Laguna, Philippines, a 3-year strike against Nestlé was partially precipitated by Nestlé's refusal to include the retirement benefits of the workers in the collective bargaining agreement, despite the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of the workers. The company has brutally attempted to break the strike; this year, two unionists, including prominent labor leader Diosdado Fortuna, have been murdered.

CHEVRON

Human Rights Abuses: environmental destruction, health violations, and violent killings

The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by leaving more than 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. The toxic crude oil and formation water seeped into the subsoil, contaminating surrounding freshwater and farmland. As a result, local communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions. Indigenous communities have been dispossessed of their lands, and millions of hectares of rainforest have been destroyed to make way for the company's pipelines and oil wells.

Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of nonviolent opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has collaborated with the Nigerian police and military who have opened fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta. In 1998, two indigenous Ilaje activists were killed by Nigerian military officers flown in by the company while protesting at an oil platform in Ondo state. In 1999, two people from Opia village were killed by military personnel paid by Chevron, after soliciting a meeting to complain about the company's harmful effects on local fishing. And in 2005, Nigerian soldiers fired upon protestors at Escravos oil terminal, leaving one protestor dead.

Additionally Chevron is responsible for widespread health problems in Richmond, California, where one of Chevron's largest refineries is located. Processing 350,000 barrels of oil a day, the Richmond refinery produces oil flares and toxic waste in the Richmond area. As a result, local residents suffer from high rates of lupus, skin rashes, rheumatic fever, liver problems, kidney problems, tumors, cancer, asthma, and eye problems.

In December 2004, the Unocal Corporation, which recently became a subsidiary of Chevron, settled a lawsuit filed by 15 Burmese villagers, in which the villagers alleged Unocal's complicity in a range of human rights violations in Burma, including rape, summary execution, torture, forced labor and forced migration. Despite the settlement, human rights abuses continue along the oil pipeline in Burma, which is still "secured" by the Burmese military. Chevron is responsible for the risks associated with this pipeline.

WAL-MARTHuman Rights Abuses: worker rights violations, labor discrimination, union busting

Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the world. It owns 5,100 stores worldwide and employs 1.3 million workers in the United States and 400,000 abroad, as well as a millions more in the factories of its suppliers. Because of the company's enormity, its business model has a huge influence on workers and businesses around the world; so far Wal-Mart has used that influence to ruthlessly drive down costs as a means of making profit, violating a vast array of human rights and labor rights along the way.

Many people have heard of the way that Wal-Mart steamrolls its way into every possible town, destroying local supermarkets and countless small businesses. We have also heard about Wal-Mart's long track record of worker abuse, from forced overtime to sex discrimination to illegal child labor to relentless union busting. Wal-Mart also notoriously fails to provide health insurance to over half of its employees, who are then left to rely on themselves or taxpayers, who provide for a portion of their healthcare needs through government Medicaid.

Less well known is the fact that Wal-Mart maintains its low price level by allowing substandard labor conditions at the overseas factories producing most of its goods. The company continually demands lower prices from its suppliers, who, in turn, make more outrageous and abusive demands on their workers in order to meet Wal-Mart's requirements. In September 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of Wal-Mart supplier sweatshop workers in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Swaziland. The workers were denied minimum wages, forced to work overtime without compensation, and were denied legally mandated health care. Other worker rights violations that have been found in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include locked bathrooms, starvation wages, pregnancy tests, denial of access to health care, and workers being fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights.

Additionally, nearly 70% of Wal-Mart's goods are made in factories in China, a country where garment workers are often kept under 24-hour-a-day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory conditions. The Chinese government does not allow independent human rights groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions have been crushed. Wal-Mart refuses to reveal its Chinese contractors and will not allow independent, unannounced inspections of its contractors' facilities.

This List goes on and on

What was it, in 2009 in the fiscal budget, something crazy like 70% of our entire budget went to the Dept of Defense, while schools and healthcare get worse, while people starve and are unemployed, because we need a bigger defense budget then the rest of the world combined.

This is why I try to keep my money out of the hands of big business and the taxman

Some call it dishonest by trying to keep my money out of the hands of people I call murderers, torturers, and think they are killing our planet and oppressing it's people.

So we agree in one sense Larry, somebody somewhere pays when we don't, it's just you and I may have a different idea about who that someone is, and different ways to be true to ourselves, but the important thing is we are honest with ourselves and do the best we can with the knowledge we possess.

That is the problem with introducing ethical questions, is we may have two good and righteous men on opposite sides of the same issue, and one may see a grubby hippie that by not paying his taxes and for example, stopping traffic in demonstrations or shutting down the factory where he works is causing he and his family direct harm and maybe causing he and his family economic hardship, and the other may see the first as a corporate fascist stooge duped by his masters who is supporting practices leading to the destruction of the earth and the oppression of her peoples, and according the information each has received, they are both equally right.

To be perfectly clear, I neither work for said harmful factory, nor demonstrate against it, I merely observe and try to lessen my impact on the planet with small and personal actions, I am steadily improving, and I have caused much harm through ignorance and not knowing any better as I chugged my cokes and ate my chocolate.

As I learn better, I do better.

Thanks for a great, thought provoking topic and I leave you with a thought

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Thine own self be true my brother, it's all we can do

-- Edited by AGO on Friday 9th of April 2010 02:49:07 PM

Larry_H wrote:

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AGO

Sometimes you have a great ability to complicate a simple program.

My question and thread was about honesty not ethics.

Larry_H wrote:

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We are taught are we not that we should not harm others.  If we are not entirely honest with the insurance man or tax man are we not harming others by causing them to pay more?

Just a question nothing more.

Larry,

---

 

 

---

Yeah I had some spare time

 

True, you initially asked about rigorous honesty, and then when I answered with rigorous honestly, you asked me if I thought the decisions I made impacted others negatively or hurt others, which is you questioned my ethics, not if I was being honest with myself, but how my decisions directly or indirectly affected others.

That started me thinking, which is usually my second mistake

I asked the same question in return, do you feel the decisions you make impact others? I was looking at myself as much as asking the questions, I am on Facebook and all of the sudden I am seeing viral lashback against these corporations, all of the sudden their detractors have a very fast way to make their views known since big business controlled media won't, the questions I asked in that thread are all questions I have been asking myself.

I thought my question was very relevant to the very question you asked me, do our actions adversely impact others?

Personally, I will have no problem giving up Coca Cola products, and have already switched to local markets selling local meats and produces, I buy gas from Arco, I have buying american made products, I am going to have to find some eco friendly "green" chocolate to buy though, cause I don't know about you but chocolate > innate sense of right and wrong in my gut.

Like I have been slowly making the move over to green friendly in my own bumbling way over the years, each time I learn something I try to follow it and change my actions accordingly.

it was just a question, nothing more

 

so, new question

 

it's simple

 

Will you feel guilty now for eating chocolate knowing it's made with child slave labor? Or having a coke or any coca cola product knowing the harm they cause others? Or buying any product made in China?

Or will you begin to seek alternatives?

 

What is the right thing to do now that you know? will you seek to learn more?

-- Edited by AGO on Saturday 10th of April 2010 09:23:56 PM