THE HUMAN HERD:Sin, Crime, Prison, Economic Injustice, and The Republican Party

THE HUMAN HERD: Sin, Crime, Prison, Economic Injustice, and The Republican Party

Written by James J. Crook

This essay is about a mammalian species called the human herd and the dynamics and consequences of social injustices upon the members of that herd. In terms of mythologies and theologies, Christianity’s concept of sin is a “fiction”, born of ignorance and superstition, in an [ancient] human evolutionary era of social baboonery wherein Nature was incomprehensible, representing the wrath of God, and “rainbows were God smiling on the earth”, and not the prism effect of sunlight passes through humid clouds. Sin was a standard of accountability to wrathful gods, i.e. Nature, to remain in their good favor to avoid being harmed by their anger. The Aztecs sacrificed 20,000 human beings in one day, offering their excised beating hearts up to sedate their insatiable blood thirsty god, so this god would continue to hold their universe together. Since theocracies were the first governments, their lists of sins were equivalent to today’s penal codes that outline the limits of [acceptable] human behavior. In short, the concept of “sin” was a perception of early social man based upon the premise that humankind was inherently evil, needing of monitoring and correction, and [accountable] for his or her sins, and that such accountability to human peers would assure harmonious social human behavior and avoid everyone in the community being harmed by the gods. Such mythology represents most of today’s religions. Accountability to the gods is still a concept inherent in most of today’s world religions i.e. perceptions of heaven and hell. (In Christianity, man being perceived as sinners and humankind being perceived as inherently evil are mandatory concepts for Christianity to survive. Otherwise, Christianity would have [no one to judge and punish] or send to heaven or hell, and Jesus would have [no one to save], if human behavior were only reflective of the survival instinct identical in all other mammals i.e. as long as there is enough food for everyone, there is harmony i.e. no evil acts, no sins, and no crime within the herd. Both Christianity and Jesus would be without a job. Hence, Christianity, without these negative concepts as its basic foundation, would collapse like a house of cards. For its very survival, humankind must be retained as inherently evil.)

Knowledge had not arrived for early man when the multiple mythologies of the numerous world religions were developing. The mythologies, supported by theologies, allowed early social man to make some sense of humankind’s universe, amid his ignorance, and represented a [coping mechanism] to arrest his or her fears of what they did not understand regarding the forces of Nature through the perception of “appeasement” of the gods, e.g. much like a small monkey offering a stalk of bananas to a much larger and more dangerous ape to keep from being harmed or killed by the latter. The [concept of appeasement] was a giant evolutionary step forward for early humankind, which advanced humans above other lower animal forms, as it represented an additional survival tool to the fight-or-flight responses of most animals, and permitted humankind to retain their composure in the face of fear, hence, remain functional with integrated “thinking”, as opposed to emotionally shattering panic, which calmed and increased human’s ability to focus and survive. Appeasement to the gods took the form of “offerings” i.e. sacrifices whether they were harvests, animals, or humans. Whatever it took to appease the gods regarding the unacceptable acts of sinful man. Regardless of humankind’s coping- mechanism mythologies and resulting theologies, the accurate overview is that humans are mammals like all other mammals, with herding instincts and survival instincts much like all living things, including plants.

Do other mammals sin? Are horses also going to hell for their errant ways? Herding mammals, including humans, are normally harmonious, i.e. non-sinful, as long as there is enough food to eat. When there isn’t enough food to eat and starvation commences, the [survival instinct] of all living things kicks in and members of a herd will invade other herd members’ food supply and other resources that can produce survival, like starving dogs fighting and killing each other over a bone. Human theological society calls this mammalian struggle for survival, in the absence of food, sin and human secular society calls this anti-social behavior or crime. History has shown that when human mammals are adrift too long at sea and starving, their survival instincts again kicks in and they, on many occasions, resort to cannibalism, regardless of whether such acts are designated as sinful or a crime. A mother will steal to prevent her infant child from starving i.e. another crime generated by one’s struggle to physically survive produced by inequities and evils within a country’s economic system.

In short, what modern day society designates as crime, to a more and more increasing degree, is just [people without food] i.e. without income to obtain food due to economic injustices which favor members on the high side of America’s economic caste system and disenfranchise Americans on the low end of America’s caste system, criminally responding to their [instinct to physically survive], like all other mammals and living creatures. The instinct is a natural instinct. It is the “economic injustices” of an evil society which is at fault and producing the anti-social behavior which churches and society designates as a sin and a crime and not so much that the offender who is trying to physically survive. Such economically disenfranchised member of society is not bad and sinful as churches state and inherently evil i.e. “a criminal” but just a herd member who is attempting to stave off starvation and death due to a society’s denying that herd member food or its equivalent. It is the inequitable society and not the disenfranchised herd member which is producing the so called sin or crime. At fault is that country’s economic system and not so much its starving citizens’ fight to survive. This truth is reflected in America’s prison system wherein 95% of its inmate population is black, Hispanic, or a member of a minority or on the low end of America’s economic caste system. In Germany, the crime rate is low along with its prison population because if a German citizen is without a job, hence, without income to buy food to eat to survive, the government picks him or her up and transports them to a job site to insure each German citizen has enough income to buy food, shelter, and clothing. With such needs filled by a sensitive government not on the corporate "take", there is no need to commit crime in order to survive, hence, no crime - or "sinners".

When a human herd member encroaches upon another herd member’s food supply to survive, due to economic injustices within that country, this puts a ripple on the herd’s social waters and disrupts the herd’s harmony i.e. creates herd conflict. However, if the starving human herd member did not invade another herd member’s resources, the herd member would die, hence, such member i.e. citizen is driven, due to economic injustices, to break the human community’s rules and law to avoid the consequences of starvation. Such an act, designated a sin, crime, or offense against the herd is normal and the universal survival instinct found in all animals, in defense of survival. All living things will attempt to survive and, with this, such conduct is to be expected if not warranted. The answer is not prison. The culprit is the economic system which produced such a desperate situation for herd members. An offense against the herd in attempts to physically survive doesn’t make the human mammal theologically evil or permanently bad, to be ostracized from society forever by the rest of the herd. Such anti-social acts just mean the human herd member is hungry and instinctively fighting for survival like any other animal.

Do horses and seals, i.e. other mammals, need organized religion to teach them right from wrong or to be socially harmonious within their herd? Harmony, within the herd, will always exist (except for mating rituals and mental illness) metaphorically as long as there is enough grass to graze upon i.e. as long as there is enough food for the entire herd to survive upon. Basically human mammals are the same. As long as there is enough food i.e. prosperity, there is an absence of conflict among the herd members and harmony will prevail without any theological lessons on right or wrong delivered to a starving human. But when human societies develop selected rights for [privileged] herd members, i.e. economic caste systems, which give some herd members an over proportionate amount of food and resources and give disenfranchised herd members an under proportionate amount of food and resources insufficient to survive on, conflict erupts from the survival instinct of the starving members of the human herd from their struggle to survive and protect their families, as they are compelled for survival, to encroach upon the resources of the elite members of the human herd, in America's economic caste system.

The disenfranchised human herd members at the bottom of the social caste system, i.e. the poor who wind up with less food than the elitist economic caste system members i.e. the rich, or no food, put ripples on the social waters and disturb the harmony of the herd in order to get enough food and resources for them and their families to survive. The response of the economic caste system society in America is to put these agitating low end caste system hungry herd members in prison for violating the law, resulting from the very blatant injustices inherent within the Nation’s economic caste system which is the true evil doer in this scenario. The human mammalian herd society labels these low end caste system herd members criminals. In reality, regardless of the “righteousness” of the elitist herd members, the offending starving herd members are victims of economic injustices which give the elite members of the human herd part of the food supply and resources belonging to the low end caste herd members, leaving the latter without sufficient resource s to survive. This reality is the reason why America’s prisons are usually empty of elitist members of the Nation’s economic caste system. There is still an aristocratic mentality in America which is bent on retaining the Country’s unjust caste system as it perpetuates this aristocracy as long as the low end herd members keep receiving less income so the elitist herd members can receive more i.e. low minimum wages so the rich pocket more from the misery of the poor. This aristocratic caste system American mentality can be expressed in the following metaphor. “ They are now letting niggers and wetbacks eat in our restaurants, sleep in our hotels, drink from our water fountains, use our restrooms, attend our schools, work in good jobs, and even vote.” This mentality was universal in America just 45 years ago. It still exists among Americans who are unwilling to give individuals convicted of a crime any economic or social status, permanently barring them from jobs and social integration, and reducing them to the status of the lowest wage earners on the rare occasions they are hired, even though these individuals have fully repaid their debts to society.

Economic injustices and economic and social caste systems exist in America’s human herd today. Part of the laundry list of social evils presently within our system and culture. The disenfranchised herd members who encroach upon society today in order to eat are not [inherently evil] as some church’s righteous unforgivingly view them. Just hungry and deprived of resources adequate to survive. Their situation is the reason the elitist members of our economic caste system prefer [exclusive capitalism], i.e. Rupublicans, and non-existent socialism as it entrenches the rich members of the human herd thriving at the expense of and on the backs of America’s laboring poor whose low wages and hard work are the reason the elite herd members are rich and keep getting richer and the low end caste members keep getting poorer in their journey towards peonage, and finally prison when their food supply runs out. The problem is not sin and crime. It is economic injustice. The color of America’s prison population is brown and black. Are these disenfranchised human herd members permanently evil and sinners as the Christian community has been taught to view them and permanently ostracize them? Would any Christian hire an individual with a criminal record? Or, in truth, are criminals really just victims of economic injustice, in an America, due to its capitalistic economic caste system, “where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”?

So much for disharmony within the human mammalian herd from “evil” conflictuous herd members who, along with their family members, are without food and some starving unless they steal. E. g. "How dare they? I paid that wetback to clean my pool yesterday and give him one day's work a week and he wanted a minimum wage because his family doesn't have enough food. How ungrateful. Now I caught him stealing. Call the police.”

Americans, especially the American minorities, should think twice before voting for another Republican office seeker when understanding that all Republicans, almost to the representative, are against all forms of socialism (government help of the needy) regardless, including minimum wage, national health care, free school lunches for poor children, while they support their corporate donors who guarantee their re-election, with laws that allow abusive bank overdraft charges, credit card hidden fees, no increases in corporate taxes, outsourcing, foreign oil purchases, etc. which scams all exploit the poor, further separating them from what little income they have, as the rich never have such problems. These corporate scams only target the poor as the rich do not overdraw their bank accounts, exceed credit card limits, and have no late payment fees. There will be fewer criminals to fill America’s prisons and less sinners for America’s churches to condemn if all members of the human herd have enough to eat i.e. if there is less [economic injustice] in America.

Didn’t the 14^th Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantee “equal protection of the law” for every citizen, regardless? Isn’t the foundation of the American Creed “All men are created equal”? Wasn’t America “a government of (all) the people? A departure of European monarchy and caste systems wherein everyone was meant to have an equal opportunity, based upon a merit system? If so, how does Corporate America’s Republican Party explain America’s abundance of mercantile princes and America’s new aristocracy, especially regarding members of America’s health care community wherein physicians earn from $300,000 to $3,000,000 annually, hospitals charge $5,200 per day, and some black minority members, such as exposed by Hurricane Katrina, earn less than $10,000 per year? This author never agreed with the U. S. Government that American opportunity was only for 49% of the population, with its majority of citizens abandoned socially, legislatively, and economically. Thanks to the Republican Party who to the person voted against health care reform, the United States in now the only major industrialized nation in the world without national health care. Co-payment requirements are [shutting down medicare] for the elderly who cannot get another doctor's appointment until the co-pay balance is paid from their limited social security checks which do not allow such payments. A U. S. Government scam to save medicare money by excluding the poor. The greedy Republican Party has forgotten that the only purpose of government is to serve the needs of the people. Plutocratic Republicans have also forgotten that they serve in a “representative” capacity for the population, to meet its needs, and were not elected as entrepreneurs with their own private economic agendas, abandoning the people and looking to Corporate America for their future financial security.

In summary, as long as everyone eats, there is harmony within the human herd resulting in no one having to be designated a “criminal” or evil or having to be punished or theologically sent to hell because of their efforts to ward off starvation. The concept of [right and wrong] and who to hate doesn’t need to be taught in the world’s churches of oppression and cruelty, namely Christianity (e.g. the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, witch burning, the Salem hangings, Mormon killings, gay murders, etc.), Judaism (“an eye for an eye”), and Islam (all non-muslims are infidels and soldiers of Satan). People just need to eat. Social issues of right and wrong have nothing to do with righteousness, judgmentalness, condemnation, or heaven and hell. [Right and wrong] issues are dynamics only of economic injustice. As long as economic injustices and caste systems prevail, nations’ prisons will always be filled with starving people. It appears that the theologically “evil” is a designation reserved for the poor, by the righteous psychopathic among us in society, the real forces of evil and harm doers when correctly viewed, who need someone or something to hate, harm, punish, and destroy. As world renown philosopher Bertrand Russell stated, “Righteousness is a license for cruelty and sadism” [towards society members, not perfect enough, by that elk in the human herd who are always well fed.] As long as everyone eats, there is no need for churches to tell the harmonious human herd what is right, what to do, not to steal, and who to hate. Economic justice and not aberrant “judgmental preaching” will retain harmony within the human herd. When everyone is fed, there are no “sinners” or so called bad people who theologically need to burn in hell forever and no criminals who need to be sent to prison, - for attempting to eat. Economic justice, and not the lash, will achieve such harmony within the human herd. The hateful element within the herd, first to point a condemning finger at the evil ones i.e. the starving poor among us, can usually be found among the Nation’s “righteous” church members. A gross hypocrisy by these self glorifying [ighteous] many of whom appear to know nothing of compassion. As long as the Nation’s religions remains judgmental and condemning instead of understanding, tolerant, and forgiving (Buddhism), they will continue to be a problem and a [negative, destructive force] in American society. As long as there is economic injustices, caste systems, and political parties sensitive only to the needs of the rich, leaving the poor and disenfranchised forever wanting with no upward mobility, there will continue to be disharmony within the human herd. [Social justice], not preaching, is the medicine America needs.

For those among us who feel more penal codes are needed to control the anti-social behavior of minority class members and more theological rules are called for to educate the human herd to distinguish right from wrong and to punish evil sinners, answer why other mammalian herds appear to live in harmony and thrive as long as there is enough food for all, without churches, concepts such as sin, hell, crimes, that herd members are inherently evil, or that herd “grass” is reserved only for the elite and its privileged members. The survival instinct will always cause humankind and all other life forms to try to survive even if it means disrupting the harmony of the herd. Avoiding this disharmony through the concept of “equal protection of the law” for everyone and not just the economically elite is the function of social justice. [The 14^th Amendment.] However, social justice requires a U. S. Congress that is not corrupt.

Regarding mammalian herds, the author cannot recall the last time a starving cow went to hell – for trying to physically survive by eating another cow’s hay due to it having none of its own because the other cow had previously taken it's SHARE. Regarding economic injustices, would the real social evil stand up i.e. America’s economic caste system elite, thriving on the laboring backs of the hungry poor. In the starving cow metaphor, there should have been enough hay for [all] the cows but for a corrupt disproportionate distribution. Then harmony would have forever prevailed among the herd and the starving cows [such as criminals and “sinners”] would not have had to have been naughty at all. (And their hungry kids would have gotten to eat also.) Social harmony will usually always prevail when there is [enough food] for the entire human herd, without any Sunday School lessons in what is right and wrong, what one will do, and who to hate. When everyone is fed, no one has to go to prison or hell - for attempting to live.

For starters, economic justice for the masses sounds good, along with Congressional Representation of [all] classes in America and not just the economically elite and Corporate America. Some members of Congress need to remember that, as stated, “The only purpose of government is to serve the needs of the people,” ALL the people. This requires the elimination of all economic caste systems in America. America was never meant to be a European-style class system, an aristocracy, a monarchy, or the Corporate America dictatorship which has bought and currently owns America's sell-out Congress. Members of Congress need to remember that the 14^th Amendment requires equal protection for every American. Not just the multinational corporations heavily financing their re-election campaign so that “outsourcing” and the purchase of cheap foreign oil over domestic development can continue lining corporate pockets, dramatically draining the U. S. Treasury in the process until it is empty.

As the grass dries up for the American human herd, due to multinational corporate drainage of its financial resources wherein many no longer eat, the starving herd members will become anarchical as they dramatically disrupt the harmony of this human herd in their attempts to physically [survive] anyway they can. A natural response considering the alternative. [Criminals] and "sinners" will then multiple by the tens of millions as they encroach upon other herd members' resources to survive. Crime. Congress's corruptly allowing multinationals to drain off America's financial resources via outsourcing, the purchasing cheap foreign oil, and shutting down America as a former manufacturing nation with its tens of millions of manufacturing jobs, will end this geographic human herd's food supply, and eventually imperil its very future existence. The lesson here is religious righteousness and punishing criminals and "sinners" to control disruption within America's human herd is not the answer to America's economic problems and lawlessness. [Only] when all its members eat will there be social harmony. For this to happen, economic justice in America must prevail. For this to happen, the American electorate must deal with its corrupt Congress in the latter's sellout to foreign multinational corporations which are currently taking all of the American human herd's grass supply.

TO DISTILL IT ALL, human beings are of herd mentality. Philosophically, barring mental illness, brain damage, or hormonal imbalance which is a mental health issue rather than theological “demons” roaming the earth, there is no such thing as evil, “sinners”, and criminals. Just wanting victims of economic injustice attempting to survive. Axiomatically, when everyone eats, i.e. the population’s economic needs are satisfied, there is harmony within the human herd as, then, no herd member (criminal and “sinner”) is forced to encroach upon the resources of another herd member to physically survive. Then, metaphorically, “dogs don’t need to fight over the same bone” (social disruption) i.e. prisons don’t need to be filled with the “minority poor”. So, its time to retire the raging-on, hell-fire-and-brim-stone, forever sinner-condemning preachers and hateful notions of hell-type [brutal punishment] for the so called bad people, a theologically sadistic mentality, fixations on delicious punishment in general, and the aged social tradition of “man’s cruelty to man”. An ignorant and superstitious Christian American society needs to revamp its theological thinking regarding criminals i.e. American citizens with criminal records before it decides to hate, harm, and persecute these fellow Americans FOR LIFE and cruelly exclude them permanently from every aspect of social life, like pariah, as the “evil” that God has mandated them to destroy. These individuals, accurately perceived, may be just “victims” of economic injustice attempting to physically survive pursuant to a survival instinct or the innocently convicted DNA exonerated. Such aberrant Christian conduct, [cruel indeed] by anyone’s standard, is ironically non-Christian as such theological mentality is hypocritically void of “forgiveness”, tolerance, and love as modeled for Christians by their leader, Jesus. What to do about the [economic injustices] in America currently causing, metaphorically, not enough grass for the human herd to feed on, resulting in disruption (“evil” and lawlessness), disturbing the harmony of the herd?

IF EVERYONE EATS, as stated, there is harmony within the human herd. To implement this goal for Americans requires two things: (1) The United States must immediately enter into a political and economic philosophy of PROTECTIONISM for manufacturing jobs by the tens of millions and the latest skyscrapers to leave Asia and return to American shores;and (2) the United States Government must immediately exercise control over the “multinational corporations” presently sabotaging this Country, financially, by draining off the economic resources so critical for this American human herd to have enough grass for everyone to feed on to restore harmony to this herd. As stated, this will only be possible if the American electorate first sweeps Congress clean of its corrupt and greedy United States Congresspersons who have betrayed the electorate and treasonously sold America out, for large amounts of corporate pay-off money, to these foreign “multinational” saboteurs. Anyone care to vote Republican?

"Food" for thought.