by James Glaser
May 17, 2002

Tell me now, what else can George say when he gets up there. "Sorry God, you don't understand, but that was a "just" war". " Those people were evil and I decided that they had to die". "I know that you had those rules that you gave to Moses and yes my mom made me memorize them". "Sure I broke one of them, but God, you just don't understand".

When I was a kid my mother also made me memorize the Ten Commandments and "Thou Shalt Not Kill" seemed pretty straight forward to me. Either you do or you don't.

The Ten Commandments were part of the training that my parents gave to me and my sisters, trying to pass to us the set of "morals" that their parents gave to them.

My morals are a number of core values that my parents passed down to me. They do deal with right and wrong and they are not negotiable. Something that is wrong can't be made to seem right. After a while with my parents direction I was pretty much able to tell if what I did was right just by how I felt inside. That is what a conscience is.

Growing up I found that most of my school mates and friends were on the same page as I was, when it came to knowing right from wrong. In church we had the Ten Commandments and after school we had the Boy Scout Oath. These were reinforced by both my Mom and Dad. My Dad gave me one with out my Mom around, "never ever snitch some one off".

I am not about to tell you that I have always stayed on the straight and narrow, I haven't. I have although, been stuck with that bad feeling when what I have done is wrong. Maybe that goes away if one continues down a dark path, but for me it always tended to get me back in the right direction.

Being from a close knit family I guess I was always a little naive and thought that these values that my parents, church and community gave me were what everyone got while growing up in America.

Someplace along the way in this life those in Washington have forgotten those core values that I hold so dear. It just seemed so simple to me. Treat others how you want to be treated. Don't steal or cheat anyone. Help those that need it. Don't go out and hurt others. And yes don't kill other people. Pretty basic stuff.

I would say that most of the people in our government at one time knew right from wrong. I can only hope that as they continue to take our country down this dark path we are on, that sick feeling of a conscience will come back to them and move them over to the light.

The Muslims say that God is great and he is, God is good, and he is and I also say that he is Right.