The Value of Life

I have thought about this for quite some time now.  And I keep coming back to an inarguable truth.  We don't value life.  Not at all.  We value the life that is in our tribe/family.  But we, as a species, have no real regard for life.

It may come from the fact that we have fought since we first learned to walk.  There has never been a time in recorded history where there wasn't conflict and death.  I'd like to think that we can blame it on how our DNA is coded, but that is a half truth at best.

I know that there are going to be a lot of you that are going to say I'm wrong.  All I can say to you is that history is on my side.  If you don't want to admit it and argue, that's fine.  Before we do that, lets look at a couple of facts.


Between Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria there have been over half a million deaths of civilians.  Half a Million.  And that seems to be on the low end.  That number shocks most of us when we hear it, but it does nothing to make us get involved.  We just continue on our merry way.

Over one third of the population of our country is pre-diabetic.  A condition that will lead to diabetes that is completely preventable.  ONE THIRD.  Yet we refuse to do anything about that.  Right now Diabetes kills around 80,000 people a year in this country, and that is set to sky rocket.  Yet we don't do anything about it.  We don't hold anyone accountable, do we?  Between the sugar and processed food industries, and a total lack of personal responsibility we are heading down a road that will make the costs of the Iraq and Afghan war seem like chump change.

I can keep going if I need to.  Heart Disease, Smoking, Opiate Overdose, Hospital Errors, Gun Violence, Human Trafficking.....All are mostly preventable.

But we can't come together as a group and say enough is enough.  We can't come together as people and say we are going to put the resources forward to fix just one of these problems.  Why?  I go back to my original argument that we don't value life.  Of I should say, we value life less than a myriad of other things.  We value what's in our close proximity, but outside of that all bets are off.

I truly believe that if we all sat down in front of each other and started talking about the things that are important to us we would find that we have a lot in common.  We would find that we all value the lives of our families and friends, and that we don't want them to die.  I wish we could translate that to a global scale and start saving each other from our human nature.