Immoral and Amoral, Two Very Different Words

 

I have to admit that using a photograph of the cover of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as the header photograph for this blog post might have been a fine way to run off potential readers.  But it is a far better thing to do than to begin this post with a photograph of either of the two people whose actions have merited their mention in this larger discussion of two related, but very different words: IMMORAL and AMORAL.  Or if we use their noun forms instead of the adjectival forms: IMMORALITY and AMORALITY.  If we refer to the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary", which I do frequently, we find that IMMORAL means "not conforming to accepted forms of morality".  AMORAL means "lacking a moral sense; unconcerned whether something is right or wrong".  Now you ask, what on earth could he be thinking to write a blog post about just two words in the vast English language which has always required 26 volumes for the complete Oxford English Dictionary.  This is not the first time I have written a blog post about the differences between two words.  This blog post about "Practicing" and "Professing" came up for the very same reason this one has, because our country and our democracy are under threat today by some of the most dangerous enemies this country has ever had, enemies who falsely claim to be devoted to this country and the values on which it has been built and which have made it the world's greatest representative democracy.  AMORAL and IMMORAL are very closely related and come from the same root word, and they both refer to deficiencies in morals in a human, or more appropriately, in a human soul.  IMMORAL refers to a person who lacks sufficient moral values or moral fiber, if you prefer, to meet the customary minimum standards of a civilized society.  But the IMMORAL person has one unique quality which the AMORAL person does not.  The IMMORAL person has the capacity to change, learn, improve, and to develop sufficient morals in order to become a socially acceptable person who is worthy of trust, respect, and, in some cases, admiration.  The AMORAL person is not built the same way psychologically as the IMMORAL person.  The AMORAL person lacks the ability to change, learn, improve and to develop morally to become a better human being who is worthy of trust, respect, or even admiration.  Psychologically, the AMORAL person is a very different breed of animal and, even more to be distrusted, disrespected, and guarded against in all forms of human interaction.  They have no internal controls or moderating factors to make them capable of successful, productive, and humane interactions with the human race.  Some examples of people who were AMORAL instead of IMMORAL would include Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Benito Mussolini, and Sadaam Hussein.  

 

We are facing the most momentous presidential election in the history of this nation which is almost 250 years old.  Even the presidential election of 1860 was not as potentially consequential as the presidential election of 2024.  If the 1860 election had gone wrong and Abraham Lincoln had not been elected, the United States would have simply split into two separate countries and both might well still be in existence today.  If the presidential election of 2024 goes wrong, the most likely outcome would be that while the title of United States of America might remain in use for an extended period of time, the United States of America would cease to exist in practice, not just as the most powerful democracy in the world, but as a democracy at all.  Fascism and Democracy are the real opponents in this presidential election with Democracy, as it has existed for almost 250 years, being represented by Vice President Kamala Harris and whomever she chooses as her running mate ; and with TRAITOR Trump and J. D. Vance representing the future Fascist and oppressive entity which might continue to exist under the name United States of America but would almost instantly become a government devoted to the destruction of nearly all individual rights, and totally uncommitted to defending our mutual interests jointly with our long term fellow democracies. This election is literally a contest between Good and Evil, Democracy and Fascism, Liberty and Totalitarianism, AMORALITY and MORALITY.  TRAITOR Trump and J. D. Vance both represent everything that is evil, destructive, dangerous, unethical, and AMORAL in the world today.  There is no crime which either of these men will not commit if it will further their momentary gains.  We, as loyal Americans, must ensure that MORALITY wins in this election.  We must not allow two men who belittle anyone different from them, and seek to destroy anything human, animal, mineral, or vegetable which stands between them and their short term desires. As Americans at the voting booth, we must support Democracy, Humanity, Fealty, Decency, Patriotism, and above all MORALITY.  We must not allow our country to follow in the historically malevolent footsteps of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Cambodia, or any other nation which allowed itself, in the course of human history, to become the slave of a dictator and that dictator's evil.  

Will This Be Our Last Real Independence Day?

 

Today is July 3, 2024, and the United States is  facing the most grave danger of being destroyed as a nation at least since Pearl Harbor.  What is even worse about this impending disaster is that the grave danger is within our own borders, centered in the 6 justices on the US Supreme Court who voted to give a convicted felon, Russian Agent, TRAITOR, serial sex offender, tax cheat, career criminal, pathological liar, and idiot a free pass on having incited the greatest insurrection in the history of our nation, having stolen and attempted to retain hundreds of classified documents which are clearly the property of the US government and no one else.  It is also centered in and led by that very same convicted felon, Russian Agent, TRAITOR, serial sex offender, tax cheat, career criminal, pathological liar, and idiot.  We are living the prediction of Nikita Kruschev when he said " We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within."  That dire prediction from the former Russian leader is being personified in the Russian Agent this country allowed to live illegally in the White House for 4 years after having committed TREASON with Vladimir Putin and Russia.  Just a few days ago one of this country's greatest historians and writers, Timothy Snyder posted a list of "50 Reasons..." why TRAITOR Trump owes a debt to Putin and Russia.  And, according to Snyder, every one of those fifty acts is documented in the public record.  That list of events which Snyder has provided includes occasions on both sides when money has changed hands between TRAITOR Trump and Russian people, probable intelligence agents, and entities, occasions when TRAITOR Trump has done political favors for Russia including the time shortly after he was allowed to enter the White House that he turned and brought the Russian Ambassador and a Russian (Translation: FSB, Russian Intelligence Agents) into the Oval Office. Those Russian agents were the only videographers and sound technicians in the Oval Office during that visit.  What do you think they were doing?  It also includes the deal for useless real estate in Florida for which a Russian paid nearly $100Million dollars, an amount vastly greater than the land's worth. There is also a great deal of credible intelligence that TRAITOR Trump has laundered an untold amount of Russian money through his companies.  Many Russian citizens also have bought units in the many condominium buildings he has built.  Timothy Snyder has been warning the US and our citizens about TRAITOR Trump for several years and his excellent little book, "On Tyranny", is one of the best examples of his many warnings.  But that book and read it closely!  It is small but it is a very important book in today's world.

Over the years since that horrible day in June 2015, when TRAITOR Trump came riding down that gold elevator at Trump Tower spouting the outrageous idea that he was fit to be the leader of the free world, I have written extensively on this blog about the grave danger he and those around him present to the country.  I know that a few people have listened to me and, hopefully, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of others have listened to the American heroes and heroines like Timothy Snyder, President Biden, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and all the other members of the January 6th Select Committee.  But we are still faced with the horrible possibility  that the same TRAITOR who has constantly exposed himself to be exactly what all of us have been saying he is, was, always has been, and always will be might actually manage with the help of Russia and other enemies of America to once again occupy the White House even after the Supreme Court has proven they are owned by the same enemies of the country which own him and that they will never make an effort to stop him, hold him responsible for his thousands of crimes, and will actually assist him in his efforts to destroy America for his Russian owners.  We cannot allow that tragedy to occur to the greatest country in the world. He must be stopped both at the ballot box and in the courts of the nation. He must be held responsible for his crimes.  He must be convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned or the nation will not survive.  The greatest democracy in the world will have fulfilled the prediction of Nikita Kruschev that they will destroy us without firing a shot, that they will take us from within.  We must vote, we must educate other voters, we must take them to the polls if they cannot drive, we must carry our lap tops to their homes and help them register and vote if they cannot leave home.  We must hold him responsible for every destructive action he and his followers have taken to destroy this nation.  We must ensure that democracy is restored to and never again endangered by traitors and agents of other countries.

The Sad State Of Both Education And Politics In America And Appalachia Today

  An Update To Two Earlier Blog Posts

In two other blog posts from the last few days, I wrote about my decision to buy and publicly wear a baseball cap with the caption "Jack Smith Making America Great Again".  I had written about the fact that I had worn it to several businesses on this past Friday, February 9, 2024, and had not had a single person speak to me about the baseball cap either to thank me for wearing it or attempt to convince me that I was an idiot and had made a terrible mistake to support the work of Jack Smith, the Special Prosecutor who will, if there is a God in Heaven, send TRAITOR Trump to the federal penitentiary for the rest of his slimy, treasonous life.  I also wrote another blog post yesterday, February 10, 2024, about the absolutely dangerous and destructive Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the Kentucky state legislature and, in particular, a pending Kentucky State Senate bill (Senate Bill #4) which is intended to stop Kentucky school teachers from using their unused sick days to add to their service time upon retirement which has been a standing benefit provided to Kentucky teachers and other state employees for many years.  This is an absolutely asinine bill which will further exacerbate the state's ability to hire and retain competent teachers especially in light of the fact that their pay and benefit structure is already well below those of most other states.  In that particular post about the state legislature, I had also provided a link to the Kentucky State Senate Regular Session Record website from the Kentucky State Legislative Research Commision which provides complete information about every pending piece of legislation during the session.  I sincerely hope  that every concerned citizen of Kentucky or anyone else with a vested interest in the state will choose to visit and study that website, use it to inform and refine your beliefs and opinions about pending actions of the legislature, and then choose to speak out about, propagate, and vigorously defend those beliefs and opinions.  

 

Now, I am betting that most of my regular readers are wondering what all this writing about Kentucky Senate Bill #4 and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the state legislature has to do with wearing a baseball cap supporting the incredible work of Jack Smith and his investigative and prosecutorial team.  This is the story of that connection.  Yesterday, Saturday, February 10, 2024, I went as I usually do to my local Saturday hangout where I customarily eat lunch and spend time with two friends, one of which owns the hangout and the other who is a lifelong friend of that owner and my friend from several years.  It is also pertinent that the owner is a local business person with two businesses in the this county and has served almost twenty years in two separate terms on the county Board of Education.  I had spent probably an hour talking with my two friends when the owner's liberal son-in-law came downstairs from where he had been working without my knowledge.  This liberal son-in-law is also a friend of mine and we love to talk politics and other topics when we have the time together.  I called him over to show him my baseball cap which he appreciated greatly and we had a good laugh about it.  His father-in-law, the long term Board of Education member, then asked me, seriously, "Who is Jack Smith?" I told him, "the Special Prosecutor" and he never said a word further.  It is now pertinent for me to say that a Facebook friend of mine who is a retired college English professor had mentioned to me earlier that the reason I had not had anyone ask me about the baseball cap was because the people who customarily support TRAITOR Trump can't read.  I now have to admit that this friend was correct.  

My Board of Education member friend and I then continued our conversation in which I asked him what  he thought about Kentucky Senate Bill #4 and the fact that the majority in the state legislature was attempting to take away the right of Kentucky teachers to use their unused sick days to extend their time of service upon retirement.  To my surprise he said that the bill is a good idea and gave me a rambling justification that "when people retire the Boards of Education where they worked have to pay for that sick time at their current rate of pay instead of the rate of pay they were earning at the time they earned the sick time".  I asked what he thought about the probability that the bill, if it becomes law, will make it more difficult to hire and retain teachers in Kentucky.  He said,"Yes, it might but it's a good idea to pass that bill."  I was, to say the least, surprised if not shocked to hear that from a sitting Board of Education member in a county where I personally know that at least one teacher has been hired in the last year or two who did not have an education degree and all her prior work  history had been in a variety of public sales positions. Hence, she was hired under a special provision in the law which allows people with unrelated degrees and experience to be hired as teachers because of a hardship waiver if qualified teachers are not applying for the available jobs  I have no idea if it is relevant that the teacher to which I am referring is related to a member of my friend's extended family. But it is very relevant that he has a great niece who is a teacher and has chosen to work in another county located about two hours from this county where most of her close relativee live.  The county in which she works is one of the best counties in the state in terms of teacher pay and benefits.

But the most relevant aspect of all this for me is that I know a member of the local Board of Education who had no idea who Jack Smith is until I told him and is not concerned that every teacher in this state stands to lose a great deal of accumulated sick time, and therefore time of service which will lower their retirement pay when it has been a long standing aspect of employment in education in Kentucky.  And you can bet your sweet ass that if the Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority in the Kentucky State Legislature get away with taking that sick time feature of retirement away from teachers, their next move will be to take it away from every other employee of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  If Kentucky teachers don't Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out strongly in their entire numbers against this legislation it will become law at a time when the current lieutenant governor is a former educator and she and the governor have fought tooth and nail for their entire time in office to try to force the legislature to give teachers a sizeable raise which would make them more equitably paid in comparison to their peers in other states. And, due to the veto proof majorities in both houses of the legislature any veto from the governor can only be a public statement of disagreement with the bill.  In fact, every state employee, both current and retired needs to be fighting to defend the teachers of Kentucky in this effort to stop this asinine bill from becoming law. If every state employee stood up with the teachers and expressed their intent to vote against any legislator who votes in support of this bill, it would never pass into law.  We should all be fighting to make Kentucky teachers the best paid and best compensated via other benefits in the nation.  When teachers are given excellent pay and benefits in this state, better qualified and more dedicated persons will strive to become teachers and to fulfill their careers until retirement.  Better teachers produce better educated citizens and those citizens produce better lifetime output than lesser educated citizens.  If we want a great state, we must hire and retain great teachers and pay them what they are worth in every other state in the nation.

Register And Vote Straight Democratic In Kentucky--Deadline Is October 7, 2019

The button above is one of my favorite campaign buttons I have ever seen and I use it frequently to make a point, especially on Facebook.  But in addition to this bit of wisdom that "bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote"  always remember this one also: Bad politicians are also elected by Vladimir Putin and Russia.  For the last 32 months, America has been suffering from the ramifications of these two truisms. 

The deadline to register to vote or to change any information on your Kentucky voter registration is October 7, 2019.  You can register to vote, change your information on your registration, or gain information about the upcoming November 5, 2019, general election in Kentucky by going to your local county clerk's office or going online at the website of the Secretary of State at the link above.  There has not been a more important election in Kentucky during my lifetime.  We are suffering from the horrible mistake of having allowed a criminal carpet bagger to weasel his way into the governor's office and he also has a band of Right Wing Radical co-conspirators in the Kentucky State Legislature.  Matt Bevin and all his Right Wing Radical co-conspirators need to be voted out of office and sent back to the same slimy rocks they all crawled out from under.  The past several elections in Kentucky and the nation have been very lowly attended and Kentucky is paying a horrible price for that low voter turnout.  On December 8, 2015, Matt Bevin was sworn in as Kentucky's governor primarily because enough good, decent people who understood political reality did not vote in Kentucky.  Immediately after being sworn in, Bevin declared war on healthcare, public education, the elderly, the ill, the infirm, the young, and minorities in Kentucky.  It is long past time for him to be voted out of office and the only way that can be done is if enough Democrats go to the polls and vote for Andy Beshear as Kentucky's next governor. 

If you are not registered to vote, be absolutely certain before your county clerk's office closes on October 7, 2019, that you go there or go online at the link above and register as a Democrat.  Then at the crack of daylight on November 5, 2019, be absolutely certain that you go to your local polling place and vote a Straight Democratic ticket.  The other candidates for lesser offices on the Republican ticket are just as dangerous and uncaring as Matt Bevin.  Do not allow your failure to vote be part of the reason this horrible time continues in Kentucky.  Here is also a link to the Kentucky Voter Information Center from the office of the Secretary of State where you can find out where to vote, how to register, how to change your registration information, and a multitude of other information.  Register and Vote STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC! 

One Miner's Death And An Age Old Problem

On Tuesday, October 14, 2014, Justin Mize, aged 31, was killed in an accident at the Tinsley Branch Mine in Bell County KY and, as I recall, the story made little impact on the overall news reports of the day.  But then on March 7, 2015, I found an update to the story on the Internet news page of  WKYT-TV 27 with considerably more information about the reason Mr. Mize died and realized instantly that it was a story which deserved to be addressed in a blog post.  It is a story about a type of tragedy in the mining industry which was common in Appalachia before unionization  in the 1920's and which is becoming more common once again in the 21st century nearly a hundred years after these types of tragedies had nearly stopped.  Justin Mize died because he had been induced to enter a 67 foot deep auger hole to retrieve a broken chain from a mining machine.

                      
The WKYT news story quoted the official report about the accident: "Foreman ****  asked the machine operator if he was going to retrieve the chain. When the operator refused, 31-year-old Justin Mize said he would go, even though other miners said it was too dangerous.  The rock fell on Mize seconds after he entered the opening. Workers were able to free him but he died later that day, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration." (WKYT-TV27)

Eventually MSHA concluded the investigation and released their report of the investigation.  The findings of the report clearly placed the blame for  Justin Mize's death on the foreman and mine management.  But the sad fact is that de-unionization of the coal industry and the breeding and nurturing of a strongly anti-union environment among miners as a result of structured programs such as the terribly misnamed "War On Coal" have created a level of employment fear among miners to the point that a miner would agree to enter a highly dangerous situation and place his life at risk at the behest of his foreman and in conflict with the admonitions of several of his coworkers. 

In the intervening time since this tragedy, Kentucky has made the terrible mistake of allowing a small right wing radical segment of the Republican party to elect Matt Bevin as governor.  The voter turnout was less than twenty percent and a far better Democratic candidate, Jack Conway, was defeated.  Almost immediately after his election, Bevin used an executive order to cease requiring state inspections of mines in Kentucky.  In the same executive order, Bevin also ended all requirements for state mandated training of mine foremen.  In the case of the inspections, Bevin's rationalization was that the federal government was already doing mine inspections and further inspections by state inspectors were unnecessary. He used the same rationalization to justify ending the state mandated training for mine foremen. 

A few days after this asinine action by the governor, I bumped into a former coworker and friend in a grocery store and we struck up a conversation which covered a range of topics including politics.  It is pertinent to state that this woman's father was killed in a mining accident in Ohio about twenty years ago when she was a small child.  It is also pertinent that she is a master's level social worker and a former winner of a Kentucky Governor's Scholarship.  She is generally well informed on news issues and coal mining issues.  But when I brought up the recent executive orders from Governor Bevin, she told me she was not aware of it.  This was a surprise to say the least.  But it is an example of how little attention most citizens of Kentucky have been paying to political actions in this state.  And that, my friends, is as great a tragedy as the death of Justin Mize or any other coal miner who dies because he is being coerced to perform a task which is clearly too deadly to be attempted.  This total ignorance of critical and destructive political actions by the citizenry along with their mass refusal to vote in crucial elections allows such Right Wing Radical Repugnicans as Matt Bevin to gain public office and perform asinine and destructive acts because they have no empathy or compassion for the citizens they allegedly "govern".  These executive actions by Governor Bevin will lead to the deaths of other men in unnecessary accidents just as Justin Mize did. 

Admittedly, there are far fewer miners working in Kentucky today and total numbers of fatal accidents and fatalities may be lower on their face in the four years to come.  But it can virtually be guaranteed that fatal accidents to man hours worked will be higher with such a governor in office who is willing to ignore the need for mine safety.  Statistically, the deaths per thousand man hours ratio will become higher because of this decision.  While the great majority of responsibility  for these future accidents and deaths will rest on the head of Matt Bevin, a portion of that responsibility also will rest on the heads of all the eligible Kentuckians who refuse to vote in such critical elections.  I will close this post with an axiom which I sadly find myself repeating more and more often these days: BAD POLITICIANS ARE ELECTED BY GOOD PEOPLE WHO DO NOT VOTE!