Nitpicking

My daughter, who is in her last year at college, called me today and was filling me on a discussion they were having in one of her classes. It seems it had to do with how just a few people could influence public policy and opinion if they squawk loudly enough. She made the point that no-one from here could go to any foreign country and demand people treat them a certain way just because they were American. Yet we will allow just about any special interest group to tell us how they have been demonized and that recompense needs to be paid. The problem, I think, is that we are too concerned about the feelings of individuals to see the forest for the trees. Public policy should be directed toward the good of the entire group, not to placate individuals. Sometimes I feel we don't want to hurt people's feelings but really in the long run, if you look at what is best for society at large, some people are going to get their feelings hurt. We have 300+ million people in this country and we can't do what's best for most people if we are constantly being cajoled into pandering to the 10 or 15 percent of them who make the most noise about the issue de jour. We've lost our priorities as a society. We have people who are more concerned about whether animals are being treated humanely in medical testing than they are about children going hungry every night. AIDS is certainly a serious problem but there are at least 20 things that are more likely to kill you than that. All it takes is right celebrity to jump on the bandwagon and whatever it is they are interested in becomes the most important issue on the planet. I feel we need to prioritize our focus to first of all to end hunger. It is absolutely within the bounds of current technology and there is really no reason for anyone to go hungry for one day much less die of starvation. Once we have that problem licked we can start to educate people. You can't learn anything on an empty stomach. Then we can tackle the next priority which in my opinion is to make sure every person has a proper education and the means to learn independently. Come on folks, there is no way our or any society can minister to individuals. That's what families and friends are for. We all need to take some responsibility and understand that while the conditions that created our current circumstance may have been out of our control, the possibilities of our future circumstances are completely within our grasp and only determined by how we react to our current situation.