Equally Ignorant

What are we doing?  I mean here.  Why is it that we exist, and what gives us the right to choose it as such?  Do we singularly exist to procreate the species, or is there something else something more?  Now don't get me wrong, I am not trying to discuss spiritual existence or religious intrigue.  But more about what we actually do with our time and how this actually benefits anything.

Some would say that we are here to procreate the species, to make more of us.  But if we really want to make more of us, then why are we killing each other?  Granted there are very few orgasms in feeding starving children, so it isn't quite as 'sexy' as the typical act of procreation.  But so what?  Look at ourselves.  We live in our happy little worlds with all of our nice little things while only a few miles - yes, just a few miles away - people are hungry and suffering.  Never mind that around the world some 2 billion people will struggle for the basic necessities of life this year.  Yet here we sit, with our nice cars, big houses, and all the other 'spoils' of a claimed and marketed 'equal' opportunity.  And this is what we think, that everyone on earth has the same opportunity.  I mean if I can do it, so can everyone right?  Think about the world, what do you think would be the single biggest determiner in a person's life expectations?  No not color or ethnicity, it is where they are born.  If a person is born in the United States they have such a better opportunity to live a healthy and secure life than someone who is born in Sierra Leone.  Color doesn't matter, simply what side of some man-made arbitrary border they were born on.

But don't think this is only about foreign countries.  Suburbanites like to sit in their self made castles and act like everyone in the US still has an equal opportunity.  No way.  If a person is born in the inner city ghetto to a minority family with a single mother, poor school districts, lots of siblings, and little food there is no way you can say that people have the 'same' opportunities in life.  history does not disappear, and 'capital' does not grow on trees.  Simply by walking in a door as a black person in America or a Roma (gypsy) in Europe you are seen differently than a white person.  This is not an equal opportunity, it is a different world that varies by color, socio-economic status, gender, whatever, and one that those on the top never see.

If every women had the 'same' opportunity as a man, then why do women make almost 30% less than men do?  Are you saying that women are not as intelligent as men?  Are they not as hard working?  And what of minorities?  Is it no coincidence that one of the poorest performing ethnic groups are of those people descending from slaves?  Fact is, America is and never was about equal opportunity.  From the time the Europeans landed equality was never part of the picture.  The native americans should have 'theoretically' had a better opportunity than the europeans - they were here first after all - but this didn't matter.  They were shoved aside - murdered with 'equal' passion, Sioux, Cherokee, Mohawk, whatever.  Guns, germs and steel don't create equal opportunities, never mind greed.

Yeah, I suppose from the dawn of time we all had equal opportunity, but that was a long time ago - no matter who you ask.  But not today.  This line of thought is simply something designed to make us feel ok about our lives.  To make us feel like its ok to be rich while other's suffer.

If we bathe ourselves in the ignorance given to us, we will never understand life, and we will never truly be free...