Last night, I came home from work and just wanted to chill out on my new couch (well, new-to-me couch – got it off of craigslist last weekend) and let some cinematic magic entertain me for 90 or so minutes. I found a movie called Kingdom of Heaven starring the ridiculously handsome Orlando Bloom, and that right there was good enough for me. It also had the gorgeous Eva Green in it for Daniel’s viewing pleasure. Fair’s fair!
Orlando Bloom plays the “perfect knight” in this film set in Jerusalem during the Crusades. His oath, as passed down to him from his father (Liam Neeson), went like this:
“Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong. That is your oath.”
Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.
Throughout the story, Bloom’s knight refused to sacrifice the helpless individual for the perceived “greater good”. In the film, the helpless were those who were sick, those who were poor, those not born into a privileged life; the peasants, the slaves, the diseased, of any or no religious faith. He protected them at great cost to himself simply because he could and because it was the right thing to do.
If that kind of integrity ever existed apart from fiction, it has long since drifted into extinction.
Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.
In our country we do not follow this kind of oath. If you are helpless, you are merely weak and it is your own fault and you should work harder. If you are helpless, that is your problem and no one else’s. If you are sick, if you are poor, if you were born into hardship, or have fallen on hard times, you are on your own. No one will safeguard you, and should you rely on people doing no wrong, you are a great fool and deserve what you get.
It astounds me that people in this country are rallying around the evil (truly evil…read this if you are undecided) insurance companies because they do not want to safeguard the helpless of this country. If you are sick or diseased, and cannot afford medical care and your insurance company denies critical care (as they do over and over) by finding some obscure legal loophole, you have no recourse. If you need to go to the emergency room because you are not able to afford insurance, they will not deny you emergency care, but they will send you a hefty bill that you cannot afford to pay.
I don’t understand why the conservative assholes of this country are so hateful, so greedy, and so utterly unmoved by the helpless. I don’t understand how we can allow the insurance companies to continue to dictate our health and destroy our lives based on their profit margins. I don’t understand this stubborn resentment towards providing adequate healthcare for every person in this country. Maybe I’m missing something, but I really don’t understand the violent venom spewed forth by the right-wing about how our freedoms are being compromised. Where the hell were they when our freedoms really were being compromised and we really were being lied to by our Commander in Chief?!
Do no wrong? Bah! People like that are seemingly incapable of doing what’s right. They are motivated by ego and power and money. And that is all. They exert control through fear and lies and hate. And that is sad.
The Kingdom of Heaven, while not an extraordinarily brilliant film, illustrated those two sides of right and wrong so clearly. And as today, back then it was also the religious fanatics who chose the side of wrong and unleashed the most harm upon the helpless to satisfy their own selfish desires.
5 comments:
Greenie eats gravel...I'm stealing that quote btw...excellent blog
No, no, Catheryn, the conservative line is, "Well, if you want to help the unfortunate, then donate to a charity." Which works wonderfully, right? I mean, those arent underfunded or anything. Because we all know that conservatives are the most giving, philanthropic group of people...
There really are some amazingly crappy, selfish, evil people in this world. There are conservatives and liberals and all ilks in between that fit that description. The one thing they all have in common is they don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves.
I think it is way past time to take from the top. We have hundreds of elected servants who do not pay into social security, because we tax payers provide them with a much more lucrative pension plan, they have very costly, top of the line health care, very gererous salaries, tons of paid time off, and massive, expensive perks.
As their employers I think we should put some down sizing measures into place with across the board salary cuts, no more costly health insurance, they start paying into social security like everyone else , do away with their "other" tax payer funded pension plan, cut all perks, and make each and every one of them accountable for everything they do or do not do. If we don't think they are doing the job we hired them to do...FIRE them.
I think this is the only way they will ever experience life the way the rest of us do. Maybe then they would come up with a reasonable health care plan for anyone who wanted it that we would all be ok with. Yeh, I know...wishful thinking.
These elected officials also wasted a half a day yesterday admonishing one guy who cried "You lie!" in the middle of the President's speech. We know it was rude. Let it go already. And don't waste tax dollars voting on whether or not the guy was being a dick.
Cathryn, I'm giving you a standing ovation for this post. I was on a New England cruise last week, which had several people from England on board. One day we were talking with one couple who asked us what we thought of this health care hoopla in our country, and they told us that they LIKE their health care system in England. They said they have a special needs daughter and that if they lived in the United States they'd be broke paying for her care under our country's current system.
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