I was reading various columns and comments this morning and I noticed that there were a lot of common (and frequently conflicting) themes to them. 

Some questions I derived from reading these columns and comments:

• Are American culture and ideals superior to those of other cultures? 
• What is moral and cultural relativism? 
• What is a constant moral or rule that will never require change or reinterpretation?

The answers to these require some critical thinking and a definition of what your goals are.  And, the fact of the matter is, that CHANGE is the only constant in life (except, maybe, taxes).  Change is not necessarily good and is not necessarily bad.  But, it's there and will always be there until you pass from this Earth into the afterlife.

So, I'll address my questions in reverse order of how I listed them.

What is a constant moral or rule that will never require change or reinterpretation?  Some would say the Ten Commandments qualify.  "Thou shall not kill." - I think this means thou shall not kill another human being. 

But, that statement requires a definition for "human being".  A couple of centuries ago, blacks were not considered "human beings" so it was therefore ok to kill them without having to ask for forgiveness from God for violating the Commandment.  Do you agree with that statement today?  Lot's of people on this site (myself, to some degree, included) have talked about nuking the Taliban or the Muslim regimes in the Middle East back into the stone age.  If we were to do that, there would be lots of civilian Muslim deaths in addition to our targets.  Are Muslims not humans?  Would that violate the Commandment?  Would we pray for forgiveness if we did that? 

So, my point is, the Commandment is a constant....but our interpretation is constantly changing based on what we define as a human being and the tradeoffs between honoring the Commandment at all costs vs. violating it in the name of self-preservation or fulfilling one of the other nine Commandments and then praying for Forgiveness and understanding from God.

Is that Moral Relativism?  To some degree yes.  But, moral relativism doesn't mean that all morals are equally good and cultural relativism doesn't mean that all cultures are equally good.  If you apply some critical thinking to my statement, some cultures are superior to other cultures and some moral codes are closer to what God intended when he created us than other moral codes. 

America has by and large chosen to follow the Ten Commandments as the foundation of our legal code (I know, I know, the Left is undermining that premise, but middle America still largely feels that way, I think) and our morals.  Therefore, you could argue that American culture is superior to other cultures that have a different basis for their morals.  But, those cultures are still filled with human beings - just misguided ones.

So, to relate this to the above, if America has the ability to spread it's core values (which again, many think have eroded beyond belief) to the world should we do it by the Sword or by teaching the human beings in other cultures?  We may have to use the sword to defend ourselves while doing this...but, we should do so only when provoked...and then being very careful about how we use the sword to minimize our violation of "Thou Shall not Kill."  Then, we'll pray for forgiveness for killing those who violently opposed us or tried to impose their morality on us by the sword.  At the same time, we'll accept and even embrace those we're trying to teach...whether they accept our teachings or not, as long as they don't get violent.  We'll have a healthy debate about what morals and cultures are superior.

So change is constant thus definitions of things change over time (relativism).  As a culture, we must establish (ideally, as the Pope requested, through a common understanding of God's intentions for us coupled with rational, critical thinking) a "good" implementation of God's preferred morals.  If America truly is a superior culture (though definitely not a perfect one) we have the power and responsibility to spread our morals to those willing to accept our teachings peacefully, accept those who won't accept our teachings, and kill those who attack us for trying to peacefully share our understanding.  We should not choose to abuse the very powerful sword we carry by forcibly spreading our way to the world.  Our way is, and should be, to present the facts to the other humans in the world and let them decide.  If they agree, great...we all become one, big happy family living in peace.  If they disagree but don't try to kill us (probably most of the world), then we live and let live while we still quietly show them the superiority of our culture.  If they try to kill us (and, I think, that's what only a small subset of the world's people really want to do in spite of what their leader's rhetoric might be), then we kill them as cleanly as we can to minimize violating our morals and the amount of God's forgiveness we have to ask for.

To summarize, the world is not a perfect place and we frequently have to choose the lesser of the evils, both culturally and morally.  This will require us to make choices about how to act and what moral takes precedence over another - and how to accept and debate those who will (peacefully) have different moral and cultural priorities.

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Well, those are my thoughts this morning.  If anyone reads them, you'll probably blast me for being a relativist.  Now, I'm off to have breakfast with the kids and go to work.

Note:  The point of this post is probably the second to last paragraph...if you don't like cars, skip to it.

I don't know how most of you feel about driving fast.  Personally, I like cars and I like driving fast way too much (so much so that I've paid a lot of traffic tickets in my time).

I've toned it down over the years.  When I was in college I had my drivers license yanked for a few months because of too many speeding violations within too short of a time.  And, driving at 75 in a 55 zone in some states is considered "reckless driving" instead of "speeding" - that means many more points against your driver's license.

I think that the fastest I've gone (legally) was in Germany on the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Vienna (yes, I know, Vienna is in Austria) in a rented car.  The limiter on the rental car kicked in at some point (I think it was around 140 mph - but am not sure since the speedo's there are marked in Kilometers per Hour, not Miles per Hour). 

You really have to pay attention to what you're doing on the Autobahn no matter how fast you're going...because there is always someone going faster and lots of people going slower.  There's nothing like having to nail the brakes to keep from rear-ending a VW moving at "only 80 mph" while recognizing that the Porsche behind you was going 150 before you got in her way.  Driving that fast in a safe manner requires a great deal of focus that most American's don't exhibit while behind the wheel.

I'm (arguably) more responsible now than I was when I was a college student.  Instead of a convertible sports car, my garage consists of a Volvo station wagon and a Chrysler minivan.  And, toddlers (not to mention antsy wives concerned about the safety of their toddlers) tend to tone down your driving habits. 

All of that said, I still want a convertible sports car.  It doesn't even need to have a big engine...a Miata or a Solstice would do.  Something to drop the top on and take for a spin on mountain roads where you can't go too fast because there are too many tight curves adjoining steep drop offs.  It'll probably be  a while before I re-aquire a convertible - two toddlers are expensive when you don't trust public schools to teach them well.

C'est la vie.

So, what's my point? 

American's don't pay much attention to their driving in the same way that they don't pay much attention to the world.  We "drive fast" on the world scene, but most of our citizens vary rarely think about the consequences of doing so.  It's OK to drive fast - as long as you're paying attention to what you're doing.  If you're not paying attention, it's very dangerous to drive fast...and, that, I think, is what America is increasingly doing on the world stage.  We're charging down certain paths (war, etc.) with abandon....but most of the country is focused on other things and isn't paying attention to the road before us.

Well, that was not a good segue from driving to world politics...but, this is a randomly thought out blog written at 7AM before I have to go to work to pay for my "not so fast" garage full of utility vehicles.