Good vs Evil

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Many of my readers do not know about life in the 1930's, so I will give you a little background about my own personal experience.

I was born in 1930 just when the Great Depression was starting. You had to have lived in that time in order to really understand how bad it was.I lived in a tiny house in Bristol, Pa. The house had a small living room, a smaller bedroom and an even smaller kitchen. Heat was provided by a kerosene stove in the living room. The bathroom was about four feet square. No tub or shower. We only had one faucet because there was no running hot water. If you wanted hot water, you had to heat it in a kettle on the cooking stove.

We had no refrigerator or ice box in the house. In the winter we had a tin box that hung out of a kitchen window. In the summer we bought food each day and used it immediately.

The interior walls were bare cinder block and the floors were bare cement. My Mom tried to paste wall paper on the walls, but it wound peel off when it rained. The floors had pieces of linoleum in the center.

The reason for mentioning this is that, although most folks were very poor and had very little to eat, crime in the town was almost nil. There was only one policeman who walked around and just stopped to talk with the residents. He had very little to do. The local newspaper was four pages. (One sheet folded in half).

In the mid 30's, I remember strange men coming to our door and asking for food. They were willing to do odd jobs for just a sandwich.What I am trying to say is, even with these tough times, people did not injure or steal from others even though they had very little food or possessions.
I learned that evil is selfishness and kindness is unselfishness. Just think about it. Why do people steal and injure others? It is because they want things for themselves or want to hurt someone in order to feel better about themselves. Have you ever heard of any unselfish act that was evil? Have you ever heard of any selfish act that was good?

There is so much bad stuff happening every day by people who want to take things from the folks who labor for it. A gas station attendant works all day to earn a living and some thug comes along at the end of the day and takes the earnings for himself without working for it. Pure selfishness.How many times have we read in the papers about someone killing another person because that person didn't respect the killer? Respect is something that you earn, you can't demand it.

So I ask you to think is there any unselfish act that is evil or any selfish act that is good?
I know this sounds like a soapbox speech, but it is my Blog and Blogs are electronic soapboxes.
Your comments are welcomed.

___________________________________________