Blag-O-Sphere

Last month I entered the blog-o-sphere with the publication of my first blog: “Who Said It Couldn’t Be Done?” Today I am going to enter the Blag-O-Sphere.

I used to be a resident of Illinois. Yesterday, Rod Blagojevich, the governor of my former state, was arrested on some pretty serious charges. Guilt or innocence will not be determined by the opinions expressed by conservatives, liberals, or moderates. It has already been determined by the actions of Governor Blagojevich. My concern is the state of truth in our day.

“Did he do it” should be replaced with a more serious question: “So what?” If there is no absolute truth, then it doesn’t really matter that a governor attempted to sell a senate seat from his state. It doesn’t really matter that he attempted to extort money from a children’s hospital or get people fired for exercising their editorial freedom. If there is truth of the absolute variety, then that means that our actions can be judged against that truth.

I think that most people, in their hearts, believe that there is absolute truth, a truth that is more than the truth of factual evidence: He did it or he didn’t do it. There is truth that can shed light on the rightness or wrongness of what he did or didn’t do. Which kind of world do you want to live in? A world where everyone makes his/her own truth or a world that is grounded in eternal truth? Think about it:

• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to use the public trust given you to extort money from those over whom you hold power?
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to beat to death pubescent prisoners and bury them in the backyard?
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to deny a person basic health and dignity issues because of age (pre-born or post-peak), race, sex, religion, or lifestyle?
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to expect someone else to take care of you because you don’t want to work?
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to run your stockholders’ and employees’ business into the ground while gaining millions of dollars in personal benefit?
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to shape the rules of employment such that you can perform in ways that do harm to the health of the company that writes your paycheck and the economy that sustains your job?
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to viciously and falsely attack your political opponent and after the dust of an election clears say, “That was then; this is now?”
• Do you want to live in a world where it is OK to be so consumption-focused that we forget all about the value of the earth from which we derive our goods or the life of the man in the door at Walmart?

What kind of world do you want? I want a world of truth, a world where what we say and what we do matters. It’s the only kind of world worth living in.

So, did he do it? We will certainly find out, but the truth already is. So what?