Can We Change

Watching Morning Joe this morning.

They were discussing the subject of torture vis a vis (always wanted to use that phrase) national security.

Need to have a national discussion.

Been absorbing all the horror of race killings and the refusal to indict.

Need to have a national discussion on race.

That's what I keep hearing from the talking heads. We need to have a national discussion. A frank, open and honest debate. With the noble goal of achieving a meeting of the minds.

That is the problem, folks. All we do is talk.

These problems are huge. They are of a moral nature.

The only true way to address them is to look into the souls of men. The only true way to change them is to change what is evil in the soul of mankind.

Call me pessimistic (and many do) but I don't think we have that capability.

The mutation that has warped the soul of humanity has created permanent damage.

I am not even sure a mutation has occurred. Maybe this is just the way we are. However, I don't want to believe that. I think we started out on a higher moral ground and were corrupted along the way.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. A well worn phrase.

I think moral evil is an all consuming evil.

We need to look into the soul of mankind. Can you imagine how horrifying that would be?

What would it be like to look into the soul of a person who despises another because of the color of their skin. How poisonous, how offensive, how bile-coated, how cold and lifeless must that soul be?

Access to a soul like that would probably result in death. Death of the observer, unfortunately.

Evil lives on.

Can we change?

The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. The law forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created to implement that law. The EEOC's role has been expanded to enforce laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability or age in hiring, promoting, firing, testing, setting wages, apprenticeship and all other terms and conditions of employment.

Blood was shed to bring about the creation of this law.

It changed the legal environment.

It did not change minds.

Racial prejudice bubbled below the surface since then, although there is no shortage of instances when that prejudice has erupted like a volcano.

In actions, in discussions, in arguments.

Racial prejudice blew right back into the open in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. It has gone even more public in the last few years with endless instances of racial killings gone unpunished.

It has been 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Can we change?