I'd like to say something profound and clever about greed, but don't feel very profound or clever at this point.
My observation, however, is that greed seems to enable many people to justify behavior in themselves that they would never tolerate in others.
In the middle ages, people at least pretended to worry about greed and the other seven deadly sins, but these days greed is felt by many to be a virtue rather than a vice.
These days billions of dollars worth of taxpayers money has gone missing in Iraq and not only do our goverment officials claim not to know where it has gone, but many people don't seem to care.
What makes the problem more perplexing is that the outrage or a public demand for accountability is mostly absent from the public dialogue on Iraq war or government funding or tax reform, whereas many are quite prepared to worry about illegal aliens possible collecting welfare, even though, dollar for dollar, the money 'lost' or overbilled by private contractors in Iraq in a single year could fund extensive social programs for a decade.
By accepting corruption and waste in our government, are we not approving of it?
Part of the problem, of course, is that we, as a society, are devoted to our money.
Sorry, I have to stop now. This just gets me too depressed.
Copyright 2007 Moral Relativism Ltd.