Core Life Philosophy

Yesterday I sat in on my daughters college political science class and listened to students describe their utopian political philosophies. I noticed one thing in common that also rang through in all other political philosophies I see in the world today. They are all based on the premise that people are bad.

This section of my campaign is about life philosophy, not political. But I think they intertwine. So, speaking of life…

When I was at the beach, my wife and I pulled into the Seaside Post Office, which we had never been to. As we pulled in, a car was pulling out. The passenger, a young man (around 20 years old) jumped out of the car, threw his hands in the air and yelled at us. He was obviously pissed. I couldn’t hear what he was saying because my windows were rolled up but by his gestures my wife could tell he was pissed that we entered through the exit. We weren’t blocking his car or any other traffic so why was he so pissed off? Because he assumed people are bad and they just do bad things, and that pisses him off. I looked around and saw no signage saying it was one way, nothing on the pavement in the parking lot, so I pulled up next to the car and rolled down my window to apologize. The driver wouldn’t have anything to do with me. They drove off all pissed and that probably ruined their day.

The point being, they automatically assumed I was a bad person rather than assuming I was a good person making an honest mistake. I can go on and on with examples like this and it makes me sad. People didn’t use to be like this. People use to smile and say “hello” to each other when they passed on the side walk. They don’t anymore. Society has programmed us to assume people are bad THEN have them prove to us they are indeed good. It should be the other way around.

In my life, I choose not to go with what society has tried to engrain in my soul. I assume people are good until they show me otherwise. I smile and say “hi” when I walk by. Go ahead, call me a “cheese ball”. After all, thats what you’ve been programmed to do. The natural state of a human being is to be caring and compassionate to others in all aspects of life and to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. This should be reflected in individual life, and most importantly, in our government. Why most importantly? Because government is a role model. How are we as a society to be expected to assume people are good when our government is all about assuming people are bad from the get go? Our laws are based on people being bad. Our police assume people are bad. Our judges assume people are bad. Etc. Etc. Etc. “Innocent until proven guilty” is a great concept, in fact that’s what I’m talking about. But it’s not practiced.

So, my core life philosophy is, “People are good, let them be good. They’ll do it on their own. They don’t need to be pushed to do it. They don’t need the government to force them to do it.”