Crimes against the future

Even though it's happening, we're not ready for this. There are lots of crimes against now: speeding, breaking & entering, theft, grand larceny, fraud, murder. They're bad, all of them. OK, if they weren't they wouldn't be crimes, right? Yeah, and there are some places that these are more widespread than others, but they are all things that we don't agree with and that we do agree are not good for any of is. Hence, they're forbidden. They've been declared crimes and we sleep better at night knowing that, though too many people in too many places have to take their guns to bed to ensure that we're all straight on that.

And that's the problem. Not that people are taking their guns to bed ... what goes on behind closed doors should be of interest to no one, regardless of how sick or kinky it might be. No ... that's all about now.

No, I'm more concerned about what's to come. We give way too low priority to that. What about illegal clearing of the rain forests. Sure, somebody's getting robbed, but more importantly, a whole ecosystem is getting ruined and future generations are going to pay for it ways we haven't even begun to imagine. Or, what about the short-term accounting practices that we've instituted. We're screwing our kids and grandkids. I'm not very happy about that. One of the things I thought I could do when I had children, was that I'd leave them a better world than I found. But that's not going to happen. Other folks have decided that their own current benefit is more important than the fate of my kids and grandkids. I'm wondering who gave them the right.

Well, it turns out, they really don't have the right. They are legally within their "rights", whatever that means, but truth be told, they are screwing with my family ... immediate and potential, and I'm not convinced that that's a good thing. I think that crimes against the future: deforestation, long-term debt, speculation, promotion of the use of unrenewable energies ... the list goes on ... are actually every bit as despicable as the so-called "crimes against humanity". After all, humanity has a future ... or at least we did until it was decided that money was more important than sustainability, for example.

No, I'm not disturbed by the reports of catastrophes per se, as I said a couple of posts ago. But, I am disturbed by the ignorance that allows decisions to be made today that have to be addressed later. I just hope my kids get more pissed off than I am.