Editor,
Morality (the quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct, according to American Heritage Dictionary) cannot be legislated. However, citizens and legislators of fortitude could stop immoral acts by calling it so.
Buddha, in his younger days, saw pain and suffering outside his palace walls. That distressed him so much that he devoted the rest of his life to showing a new way of living. King Solomon in the twilight of his years, as he propounded the meaning of life, wrote repeatedly about the agony of seeing how evil people have brought so much pain to so many. But, that was thousands of years ago; surely we are a better people now. Today, we are not expected to feel pain beyond that in our families or ourselves. Why share other people's pain? It won't advance our careers and it could jeopardize our jobs.
If we, the people, do not want to hire a person because he is not the "right kind of Hispanic," never mind his master's from MIT and doctorate from Harvard University; or in another situation, because she made us look bad by telling others that we allowed students to cheat in exams, surely we have done nothing wrong. If this happened in some third world country, then maybe we could condemn it as some form of state-sponsored human rights violation. But this is America where the state does not sponsor human rights violation. In any case, we have capable lawyers to prove that none of our actions is ever wrong. It is a good thing that, here, the mitigative process is about legality and not justice.
As a people, we are confident that our lawyers would defend the decision-makers of our institutions at all costs. After all, the decision-makers are important people who represent our values. Again, what is wrong in not hiring the wrong kind of Hispanic, or not hiring a person who blew the whistle on us? Why should we cause pain to so many of our important people if we can limit it to the two now-unemployed persons whom we could surely overwhelm with our unlimited state-provided legal resources. We could stop the pain now, but why should we? After all, don't they deserve it for making us look bad by complaining?
For some very disturbing reasons, I thought that a people should be judged, not by how they celebrate their strongest, but by how they protect their weakest. Maybe I am wrong in my thinking - which is why it is very disturbing.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
I recalled an admonishment, "Seek justice. Reprove the ruthless. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow." Alas, it was probably meant for some less developed society that existed thousands of years ago.
Koon Meng Chua
UNM faculty
