A Better Way

Fairness, justice, and clear minds.

Opinion page by Duane Alan Hahn.

The area below is for various thoughts and questions about why we don't have a better way to do things. I'll add more to this page as I remember the many years worth of things I have wondered about. I'm sure they won't be original, but I think they are still worth putting on this page.

Smash a Car, Replace it

I used to watch a lot of those TV judge shows and I repeatedly saw that if you have an old car that is in good condition and some careless idiot smashes it all to hell, they don't owe you a new or used car in the same working order, they owe you whatever some stupid book says it's worth. If it's $200, that's what you get. It doesn't matter that you can't buy a used car that is in the same condition your car was in with that small amount of money. It doesn't matter if your car had a new paint job and 20 years left before it went off to the great parking lot in the sky. All that matters are numbers in a book. Justice isn't blind, it's decapitated.

If someone smashes your car and it's proven that it's their fault, they should have to buy you a car that is similar to how your car was before they destroyed it.

Handling Death

If you believe that what you see with your eyes is all there is, then death is a good thing. The person is gone forever. No more pain, no more daily hassles and frustrations.

If you believe that there is more to us than what you can see and measure, if you understand that organic bodies are powered by something that exists before and after death, then death is still a good thing. Again, the pain of this world is gone.

I think grief is selfish. Death should be a time to celebrate. We should be allowed to feel sad for the loss, but if we think about death in a more positive way instead of the usual way most of us have been taught, we'll be able to handle it better and our brains will not become a self-indulgent stagnant pool of sorrow that we immerse ourselves in because it "hurts so good."