Keep trying

Many people would pick up some well known bits of information and use their core messages to tame the diversity and uncertainty of human existence. Mr. Alexander Sablan’s reliance on “the Golden Rule” and the Woody Guthrie’s song This Land is Your Land must have been a selection by Mr. Sablan to bring a point of what is “equal” in human interactions and God’s desire for all mankind.

The world is full of conflicts and human disorders. Is Mr. Sablan cognizant of this reality before he checked his understanding about mankind and humanity? In the Middle East, for instance, countries in this region have been at war with each other for more than 3,000 years. Here in our own islands, our leaders are engaged in politics that favor one class of people they ascertain as logical and just, while in just as many situations they dismiss and disregard the concerns of an equally deserving class of people. So, the Golden Rule, “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself” is all relative and comes with boundaries and limitations. The Silver Rule, “One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated” is played in the same conditional human order and disorder. Hence, no one is equal no matter what basis in the Bible that Mr. Sablan would resort to to bring a point about “equal” and “equality” of humanity. In the Book of Job: 13,11 is this point: “Does not the ear judge words as the mouth tastes food?” Hence, Mr. Sablan would need to clarify what he is saying.

The song This Land is Your Land was sung by a communist, Woody Guthrie. This is a protest song written during the Depression when people were unable to find work and were going hungry. For a long time this music was thought of as a patriotic song, but it was actually not. The music created an image of inequality on real social issues in that the government was not taking care of the people, and questioned “Is this land really ours?” In the state of Nevada, only 2 percent of land is in private ownership, the rest are being grabbed by the federal government. In the CNMI, the submerged land issue taken up by our congressional delegate remains an elusive matter because of doubts that the deal may after all have shorted the NMI people and we potentially got the short end of the deal. So, just as the music begs: Is this land really ours? Mr. Sablan may have chosen the wrong reference to justify his point. Keep trying, Alexander.