The Zahra Baker Case
How is this possible? 1) How could anyone do such a horrible thing to such a beautiful little one? 2) How could this have been prevented, why do these things even happen? 3) Hello? Justice?? Where are you?
We are most definately failing as a society. What kind of world are we living in? where:
-Us Department of Justice
Thats like a child and a half per minute. AND THIS IS ONLY IN THE UNITED STATES.
Unfreakingbelievable.
This blows my mind. What kind of people are we? What kind of society are we? What do each of us individually do every day, in our daily life, to prevent these sorts of things from happening, to bring safety to our gifts from God, to our FUTURE, what do we each do to preserve and nurture our children, and to fight against those who do not? Are we all mentally ill? Is there any sanity left in the world? We have children like Zahra being dismembered by possibly her own guardians, the main people there to protect and love her, to secure her safety, and to ensure her growth. She was disabled in multiple ways. Yet she was kept locked in her room all day and only allowed out to eat for 5 minutes at a time. So many individuals have spoke up after her death Isnt each and every one of us obligated to speak up for anyone being abused or oppressed? No matter who they are, who wont listen, who we are in relation to the victim, regardless, isnt this a human responsibility? Are each of us failing as humans? Is our society this flawed, skewed, destroyed?? The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
- Dante Alighieri
"Protest that endures...is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence."
- Wendell Berry
"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
- William Blake
- Buddha
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
- Edmund Burke
In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.
- Albert Camus
Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.
- Thomas Carlyle
We cloak ourselves in cold indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others – even when we cause it.
- James Carroll
To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in the distance, Give yourselves.
- Carrie Chapman Catt
"My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whinning about for years."
- Kurt Cobain
- Kurt Cobain
"Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery."
- Stephen Crane
He who allows oppression, shares the crime.
- Erasmus Darwin
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing...
- Albert Einstein
- Albert Einstein
"But this is slavery, not to speak one's thought."
- Euripides
- Euripides
What shall we say when history asks how such crimes came to be committed in the name of America? Will we say that we stood silently by, shrugging our shoulders, filling our bellies, closing our eyes? Or will we be able to say: We saw. We dissented. We resisted. We condemned.
- Chris Floyd
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do.
- Edward Everett Hale
Live truth instead of professing it.
- Elbert Hubbard
- Elbert Hubbard
A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers – and this is the basis of all human morality.
- John F. Kennedy
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.
- Samuel Adams
How long until justice is achieved? Is there even true justice in this situation? Whether they are convicted of her murder or not, whether her killer is found and charged, She. Is. Still. Dead. She still had to live the life she lived. She was still abused and maltreated. She was still a beautiful angel from God, a member of the future, whose time clock was smashed brutally for absolutely no legitimate reason. This tragic atrocity seriously reminds me of how blessed I am. And how compassionate I am and strive to be. It pulls at my heart and it thrusts it out of my chest and slaps it on the table in front of me and screams "You have a heart!! You are a human being for Christ's Sake! This bothers you because IT. IS. NOT. RIGHT. Do something about it! NOW!"
"And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said" Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." Matthew 18:2-6
"SEE THAT YOU DO NOT DESPISE ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES. FOR I TELL YOU IN HEAVEN THEIR ANGELS ALWAYS SEE THE FACE OF MY FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN." MATTHEW 18:10
Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
- Robert F. Kennedy
The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.
- Frank Kent
A time comes when silence is betrayal.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular- but one must take it simply because it is right.
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise.
- James Larkin [Statue on O'Connell Street, Dublin, Ireland]
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th U.S. president
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
- Edward R. Murrow
- Pastor Martin Neimoller, Concentration camp Survivor
What is the great Amercican sin? Extravagance? Vice? Graft? No; it is a kind of half-humorous, good-natured indifference, a lack of "concentrated indignation" as my English friend calls it, which allows extravagance and vice to flourish. Trace most of our ills to their source, and it is found that they exist by virtue of an easy-going, fatalistic indifference which dislikes to have its comfort disturbed... The most shameless greed, the most sickening industrial atrocities, the most appalling public scandals are exposed, but a half-cynical and wholly indifferent public passes them by with hardly a shrug of the shoulders; and they are lost in the medley of events. This is the great American sin.
- Joseph Fort Newman
Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.
- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950
If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.
- George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950), British author
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw
- George Bernard Shaw
The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing – for the sheer fun and joy of it – to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it.
- I.F. Stone, now-deceased muckraker who exposed corruption at the highest levels of government during his lifetime [Daily Dig]
Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.
- Bodie Thoene
Stephanie Mauvlyn BraunIt is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
- Mark Twain
