More on Human ABILITY to REASON, Human RIGHT to CONSENT - Proem & Poem No. 103

Most likely to be published later this summer of 2019, my 11th book entitled appropriately; More 100 Proems & Poems on the Peculiar Human ABILITY to REASON, Singular Human RIGHT to CONSENT & Other Neglected Matters. The following will probably be included upon further editing, and front cover a slightly modified yet appropriate version of the previous....

PROEM & POEM No. 103 - What Is Covetousness

      To roughly paraphrase the theologian and thinker Francis Schaeffer from his 1971 book True Spirituality, the climatic end to Moses’ list of commandments is the 10th; thou shalt not covet (Ex 20:17).  He goes on to expand and expound, preceding all sins or wrongdoings against others with covetousness, thus the single transgression actually two; the thought then the act. There is of course the two-millennium old parallel where Christ himself levied the same weighty condemnation on the murderous, hateful thought whether the killing act was committed or not (Mt 5:21-22).

      Covetousness per 20th chapter of Exodus are exemplified thus defined quite specifically, by the coveting of another’s family, home, livestock nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s. Later in the 34th chapter, more examples are provided, utilizing the same Hebrew word chamad, forbidding covetousness by confiscation of land when the owners are away.

      Many would dismiss the necessity for the aforementioned examples. Obviously (they would argue), the forceful taking of another’s possessions or properties are clearly wrong. Yet apparently it is not so obvious, nor clear, for societies’ politics are ridden with covetousness manifested by the very same violent actions, well disguised and hidden amid complexities therefore inconsistencies per arbitrary isms, justifications, laws, policies, programs, etc. As pointed out in the previous proem, when covetous thought results to plunderous action, does it really matter if one uses his/her own gun versus the gun of a privately hired enforcer, mobster or assassin versus the gun of a governmentally employed police officer, agent or soldier?

      In today’s democracies peopled with minds well propagandized by government funded schools, two or more sets of principles coexist, rarely questioned the inconsistencies if raised at all. First and privately, a person lives by whatever preferred set of principles driven in part by religion, philosophy and/or sentiment, combined harmonious but more likely disharmonious with inherent propensities regarding their own life, liberty and property. Second and publicly, the same person supports whatever preferred set of principles; sometimes organized as partisan planks and platforms, else formed by trendy isms per academia or media, perhaps wildly melding an array of political postures per personal attachments, however the mode, always in contrast partly or wholly to inherent propensities regarding their own life, liberty and property.

      It is by this oddly practiced dualism, violence assured and embedded covertly or overtly in political/legal systems. Unavoidable as well prerequisite of course are the disregard for the Singular Human Right to Consent or Not Consent on all matters intimate, private, philosophical, , public, social, political, consequently, ethical, inseparably the disrespect for the Peculiar Human Ability to Reason.

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Disastrously great the watersheds, empirically the emotions
Potions then odd devotions per all Isms’ alchemical notions
Untested the juggles, pinned to corners, vie logic’s coroners
Again she weeps, he in streets, aft’ praxeological forerunners

Laborers lament, troubled o’er stubble in blackened fields
Properties sacked as liberties racked, histories well concealed
Duly, individual minds coerced, communal lines rehearsed
“Truth perverse! Lies aspersed, tho’ the loveliest of verse!”

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Come let us Reason. Peace is always a Choice.
Study, Ponder, Labor, till last Breath.

Copyright © 2018 by D.C. Quillan Stone