Sacrifice

I was recently listening to the Laura Ingraham show on a local talk radio station. I started listening not because I think she is an intelligent pundit, but rather out of sheer curiosity. What is the other side of the spectrum thinking?  I should have known better. After only five minutes I was fuming, beating my fists against the steering wheel and begging her to stop spreading fallacies as fact. She has a knack for laying out fallacious arguments as if they are common knowledge, misleading her supporters and offending people who are trained to think critically (not that the two are mutually exclusive...but...I'll let you decide).


On this particular occasion, she was discussing the idea of sacrifice.She began her argument by attacking the Obama administration for a number of things. For example, she criticized his efforts to create green jobs by saying he was "throwing money down a rat hole in Washington" trying to create these jobs that cost so much money and don't effectively impact unemployment. She may be right in saying that it is an ineffective way of battling joblessness, however, she spits it with such venom you would think that these "green job" also force people to torture small animals. Anyway, that's beside the point. In her discussion of sacrifice she chose three main examples to highlight her definition of sacrifice: 1) the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, 2) the sacrifices her mother made while raising herself and her siblings and 3) and the men and women fighting for our country in Iraq. Right away these appear to me as appeals to emotion. Not many would disagree with those examples of sacrifice, including myself. What is dangerous about the way she continued to present this discussion on is how she seamlessly made it appear that Obama would disagree with her, becuase his definition of sacrifice is one in which the "American people" have to give up their freedoms, their comfort and their income (i.e. higher taxes).


The issue at play here is the carelessness of the media. This woman is spreading her opinions about our president as if they are indisputable truths and she has an audience who does not question her motives. Why hate our president? What good does that do? Especially when he is just a player in a much bigger political scene and is essentially powerless when it comes to make real "change". Obama is just a dude. OR, more precisely, he is an inevitability. Someone had to take over after Bush was done pandering to the corporations and the rest of America's wealthiest 1% and if it hadn't been Obama it would have been some other poor schlub's head on the chopping block. I'm not saying I'm necessarily pleased with they way Obama has handled things thus far, but what I have realized over the past few years is that it's going to take more than just our president to bring real change to this nation.


I digress, because the topic of this blog is supposed to be sacrifice. So let's talk about it. I asked a handful of my friends to share with me their beliefs about the notion of sacrifice. I received some great feedback. One of my best friends wrote: "sacrifice is giving up something that costs you in order to obtain something beyond you or greater than you. There is no sacrifice without cost." Another friend shared with a quote from a popular book:


"Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it.Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to." 
— Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)


Others posted these comments on my FB wall:

• Sacrifice is putting others before yourself; enduring the hard times to accomplish what is best for others/everyone in the long-run/big picture.
• There's no greater sacrifice than to give your life for a friend :) ultimately it's preferring others above yourself
• Putting yourself on the line to help a greater cause even if you don't know the outcome
• Sacrifice means doing without. Sacrifice means having a goal and working toward it. It means putting others ahead of yourself. It is the willingness to do for others what they can not do for themselves
• Sacrifice is exemplified to me by our grandparents generation. It means doing what needs to be done for yourself or others and not complaining about how hard it is. When things become difficult you work as hard as you need to in order to come through it without bemoaning your station.

 I greatly appreciate my friends' comments. They show that the "American people" do understand the true meaning of sacrifice and that pundits like Ingraham are way off base when the assume we aren't willing to think about the meaning of words like that in a deep way. She may be able to spout rhetoric and parade her opinions in a way that make the sacrifice Obama is calling for look like the kind the ancient Mayan's asked of their people, but WE (the people) know better. The next time you hear that word I urge you to really think about what it means and then compare that to what is being asked of you. Are you being asked give your life, or merely your lifestyle? In light of these economic times it seems necessary for everyone to take a moment to consider the concept of sacrifce. What would you be willing to give up to really promote the greater good? Would you stop shopping at Wal Mart so that poor families could have reliable transportation? Would you give up your second car so that millions of species could survive? These are the realities of our life style. We take and take and take and take and hardly ever stop to think about giving back. REALLY giving back. We don't want to be inconvenienced. We want things done FOR us and we sit back and criticize those who try to make things right.


Don't just sit on the sidelines and throw rocks at the people trying to make change.


Go out and be the change you want to see in the world. You might be happily surprised with the results.


~~~Be excellent to each other.~~~