Equal. Not the Blue Packet.

pigjustice

We are all the same.  Yet we are all very different.
You are completely unique in this world.  Completely you and only you.  But so is everyone else.

And here we are.  The same, but not so much.

I started watching the Netflix Series called “Making a Murderer.”  For obvious reasons, it is making quite a  buzz in the media world.  I am only a few episodes in.

One thing to remember about documentaries.  Most of the time, when someone sets out to do one, they have an agenda.  The “facts” are presented.  But many times, they show you things which drive home the purpose of the documentary.

Someone recently told me that there is a new docs-film exposing the horrific pair and their evil ways… old Bill and Hilary Clinton.  I haven’t watched it yet, but I am sure that the person filming it didn’t start out with the intention of promoting this couple.   And so it goes.

But back to Making a Murderer.  I am not saying that the facts are presented poorly, at all.  But I always have to wonder if there is “more to the story.”

That being said. There are a million things about this story which are confounding and very sad.

One thing that is painfully obvious throughout.  (They state it time and again throughout this documentary…. both the filmmakers and the people involved.)  This family is at the low end of the IQ scale.  At one point, the nephew even says… several times… “I am stupid.  I’m stupid.  I just guessed, because I am stupid.”  It broke my heart to hear him say that.

I had not taken an IQ test since college.  So I got curious and  took one of those “online” tests tonight.  It seemed like a fairly average test, about 30 or 40 minutes long.  I am pretty sure my score is exactly the same as my freshman year in college, a 142.  I think much of this had to do with my childhood circumstances. My rearing and environment.

But back to the film.  An IQ test measures your reasoning and problem-solving abilities.  In “Making a Murderer” the accused face some pretty insurmountable odds.  One of those impediments are their reasoning abilities.

Huge. They are at an extreme disadvantage there.

The brain is an amazing thing. Its capabilities are phenomenal.  We all have one.  And they all work, pretty much, in the same manner.  But for as similar as they are… they are equally divergent.  And we are back at the first sentence of this installment.

We are all the same.  Yet we are all very different.
You are completely unique in this world.  Completely you and only you.  But so is everyone else.
And.

All Men are Created Equal.
We aren’t born equal with our “goods” in life.  Some people are smart, some are rich, some are athletic, or gifted in art.  And on.  We all have different talents, and abilities, and qualities.  We are truly individuals, in this gathering of 7 billion people.

But we all have the same exact right to be here.  Not one of us is better than the other in this way.  Our spirit.  Our soul. Our being. Our gentle walk on this earth.  We all came in this same way, and we are all going out the same way too.

Equal.

Beings.

Because of this,  we are all hinged by being human.  Because of this, we have a deep responsibility to this earth.

And more importantly, to each other.

 

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.  —  Thomas Jefferson

All mankind… being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.  —   John Locke

pigequal