Machiavellian Whales

I am sure most of you were taught about Machiavelli … the most famous quip I remember was “might makes right.”  That always made me cringe.  The idea that might could be used to perpetuate a wrong was too fresh in my mind with the antics of Hitler and other dictators.

Well, you may have missed this in the recent news.  After all, it is not about Trump, Russia, North Korea.  Nor is it about Houston.  But, it is a terrible commentary about what is happening in the world.  Read about it for yourself: Anti-Whaling Activists Prove No Match for the Japanese Military Leviathan

We in this country relish the freedom of speech, the right to object, etc.  We also tend to root for the underdog and relish the opportunity to right some wrongs we see, even if they are ultimately futile.  I love the story of the little girl on the beach where thousands of starfish had washed up.  She was carefully picking them up and throwing them back out to sea.  When confronted by a realist asking, “Why are you doing that?  You can’t make a difference.  It doesn’t matter,” referring to the futility of the situation, we celebrate the child’s reply as she hurled the starfish back into the water: “Well, it mattered to this one!”.

But, now we face stark realities.  Where are we on the protection of species if this can happen?  I am not going to criticize the Japanese for their actions, but I would like an answer to the bigger question.  If we are going to protect anything, we can’t have a large group of people ignoring it because they can make so much money subverting the right thing to do.

We have an opioid epidemic in this country because there is too much money to be made contributing to it.  We have a food industry using harmful ingredients because of the same, even though the agency we all support to protect us turns a blind eye … see above for the reasons.  We have Medicare and Medicaid fraud that raises health care costs for all of us.  Why aren’t we working on these issues?  Why don’t they appear in the news?

Oh, I guess I just proved my point.

 

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