Valor

There were several reasons why I wanted to get to Boise by September. I wanted to get settled before Winter, I wanted to see Fall, and I always have the most amount of energy in September. In the olden days, when I went to school, we started school after Labor Day and I must have really liked school. Every year in September I have that same feeling of optimism and a new start.

Second best is Spring, although the new beginning feeling is less in Southern California, since we really do not have Winter, and confused by however I feel about my birthdays in March and May. In Summer I just feel like I should be on vacation, which goes back to 12 formative years of being on vacation from school. 30 years and I am still not over getting the Summer off. In Winter I just want to hibernate. No matter how busy or happy I am, I am more tired and I sleep more in Winter. It feels like Winter here already and the days are short and going to get even shorter and I am ready for hibernation.

The Health and Welfare manager sent me an email about another specialist job and I am halfway through writing the answers to the application questions for the application due Monday. The phone rang all evening last night and I may not have a job, but I feel like I have a life. I talked to my new friend now back in Bellingham, Washington, I am going to lunch on Saturday, and I am taking care of Sara and Joe's cats for the weekend while they are in Sun Valley.

In honor of Veteran's Day yesterday, I chose my own topic, Valor, with a quote from an article by John Stuart Mill that is frequently used by the US military,

“But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

I included the entire original passage, which is often abbreviated. Mill was English and writing in support of the Union north during the US Civil War. I do not know much about Mill, and I believe it is important to understand the writer and the context in which he was writing. He was a philosopher and also wrote about Utilitarianism, which bases knowledge on human experience and emphasizes human reason. As a member of the British Parliament Mill was considered to be a radical at the time, and his advocacy of women's suffrage in 1867 led to the women's suffrage movement. It is interesting that this article was written by someone "of a liberal political view of society and culture." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In his book Utilitarianism, Mill defined utilitarian ethical theory, and formulated a single ethical principle as the basis of all utilitarian ethical principles, the Greatest-Happiness Principle. (Which is reminding me of Dennis Prager's Happiness Hour, which is on today.) I will leave you to read more about the Greatest-Happiness Principle, if you are interested.

Regardless of how I feel about any war or its purpose, military service is still service to others and should be honored as such, on Veteran's Day and every day.