FREEDOM AND SELF SACRIFICE

Throughout my random thoughts, run certain ideas through which I filter, sort and yes judge the news and other inputs I’m exposed to, or expose my self to. A personal type of profiling if you will. For example someone throws a rock at my head, I judge that as a harmful thing. I duck my head without thinking anything else. This may not be correct but it works for me. The person who threw that rock may have had a very good reason to do what he did, maybe he was aiming at something else and his aim was off. Maybe I even deserved the punishment in his or even my eyes. But I don’t have the time to think those things.
------So I duck. The news of my life is continually being sifted through these instinctual filters within the architecture of my brain. It is a hard thing to change those filters, those instincts. Why do it? Why even try? Different examples come to mind. For example how do I learn to throw myself on a grenade so my friends will live, knowing that I will die? Why would I want to do that? If it’s all that necessary, shouldn’t someone else do it? I’m sure I can come up with reasons they would be better suited for the job. Most people already have come up with those reasons. Let’s look at it in another light. What about a mother who dies while pushing her child to safety out of the way of traffic? Now perhaps some obvious reasons relating to survival magically start to come to mind. I think it obvious that to the person doing the dying that the reason is based out of love.
------There are similarities between the two. Neither one is dying for some great and glorious good, they are simply protecting what is theirs and what they hold dear. A mother child love we can more easily understand as it is more universal as we were once all children. The soldier to soldier or buddy to buddy relationship is a bit harder to understand as it is out of the scope of most peoples experience. Most of us however have experienced this buddy to buddy (friend to friend) relationship in smaller ways. Selfless giving of time to help a friend for example is not considered a waste of time.
------I applaud both examples. I look to these ultimate selfless acts as heroic. Would I do the same? I really won’t know until I’m faced with that decision and don’t have time to think about it. Now as I think about it, I hope I would.
------Isn’t this type of behavior against the idea of self preservation. I know the academics will say that it is some sort of evolved social self preservation mechanism that we as a society, to be able to function as a society, have developed. Even my explanation hints at that type of idea. But I think that explanation is a little too grand eloquent, sounds like it is made more for the benefit of the survivors, not the doers. This type of explanation I think is better suited for telling someone else, “hey strap this bomb on and become a suicide bomber for the greater good”, type of mystical explanation. I prefer the definition to be about the individual doing deed. Let the individual define the deed.
------As a conservative I need only define my deeds to myself. The consequences of those deeds as they are felt by others will be defined by others as they see fit. Our government was set up to protect my rights to do just that with a mechanism insuring that others can do the same. The bill of rights is that mechanism. The rights in the bill of rights are not my only rights I have unalienable rights above the Constitution, the only limit on those which are enforceable by the government or any other person, are the ones in the bill of rights.
------In other words I have the right to decide for myself whether I want to strap on that bomb, dive on that grenade or save that child, only the bill of rights can stop me from doing one of the three. There is a moral judgment in that, can you see it?? I hope so.
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Regards, Live Dangerously
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Just found----Edit----See "Hot Daily News Links"at the upper right of my page and see the latest from Gordom the Muskegon Pundit. Notice what I titled it before you click on it. This also shows how an individual can raise the protective instincts of a group to overcome their fears.