The America of the Imperialists? (Part 2 of 2)

I don't want to beat a bleeding horse, but i do want to make truth known, so i'll just briefly lay down a few more stories and then let it go.

Recently i read a story in the newspaper about an old woman who was living at a railway station outside of town. She was maybe 70+ years, had no money, no food, no bedding, no water, and only the clothes on her back. She had gotten to be a burden on her family, who, when interviewed by a Moon newspaper, said that they could not afford to "keep" her. They have a house in town.

Am i building my case off an oddity, a freak occurence quickly rectified by a caring public? I used to work at H-- station, one of the major hubs of transportation on The Moon. Every day i and others would walk up and down the platforms, looking for the hungry, the sick, the wounded-- the neglected. Nearly every day we would take people to a home where they could receive food, shelter, and care for their wounds, most of which were maggot-infested. Why were they there? How had these people managed to live 60-70 years only to die alone and beaten down in a crowded train station, completely alone and cut off from the rest of the world?

Their families, too poor to take care of them (or so the story goes), send them into town on trains, where they crawl off and eventually die.

Justice, in most areas of The Moon, is served by vigilante forces. Oftentimes, when a car or bus or motorcycle accidentally hits a person on the side of the road, the driver will speed off, lest a mob quickly form and beat him (maybe to death) and burn his vehicle. When a woman is raped, men from her family and community will gather to hunt down and destroy the rapist. Sometimes the police show up at the scene, but they can easily be paid to look the other way or to join in the fray, depending on the price.

That's enough about The Moon. What atrocities are committed every day in countries all over the world? Violent suppression of freedoms in China and the Middle East. Systematic rape and genocide in Sudan. Civil war in Uganda. Do you remember Abdul Rahman, the convert to Christianity in Afghanistan? The clergy of that country were all calling for his immediate death, or at least his immediate brainwashing in a psychiatric ward. He got a free trip to Italy, but how many countless thousands of others never got the privelige of a media coverage and subsequent world outcry?

My point is that flagrant violations of every imaginable "human right" happen every single day in evry single country on the face of the earth. There are no virtuous nations. There is no example, no ideal, no utopia. All, like sheep, have gone astray.

So when we start to single out the U.S. as "the oppressor," "the war-monger," etc., i grow a little skeptical. It is because we are U.S. citizens that we can say that the U.S. is a war-monger. What happens to Chinese journalists who go too far in criticizing the government? What about Iran? Syria? North Korea?

And i think i've shown above how things like "law" and "justice" and "equality" are essentially non-existent on The Moon. There is corruption in our government, but it is like one malignant cell compared to the tumors that feed off third world countries. There is injustice in our imperfect country, but the chances of it being found out and rectified are astronomically higher than they are in developing nations. We have inequality, racism, materialism, murder, pornography, rape, greed, slander, lust, hatred, violence... but so does everyone else. There is no virtuous nation.

So why do i write all this?

I'd like to repeat that it certainly is not an apologetic for America. I have no desire or ability to defend her sins. We will answer to God for our past, present, and future.

I did want to show the privileged position we have. Not in the "we're just spoiled rich American brats complaining about the leather in our Lexus's" sense, but in the "let's look at the global picture" sense. We need to understand injustice in the world before we can look for ways to pray against it, speak against it, write against it, campaign against it, give money against it, fight against it, etc. Over and over again these are our commands in Scripture.

I did want to express what i think is an unfair assessment of America. Living overseas for a year and a half shows you both things you hate about your country and things you love. I love justice. I love to be able to hear the Truth in my own language. I love opportunity. I love hope. These things are available to an excruciatingly small percentage of the population of The Moon.

I did want to set my heart searching in yet another way for the virtuous nation we're promised in the last book; "A new heaven and a new earth."

Come quickly Lord Jesus. Amen.