I’m not sure why I feel it is important to promote a pledge for human decency today.  Maybe it is because I feel a little sick in my stomach, both before and after hearing about prisoners being treated in ways I can’t even detail. I don’t feel good because of a light bug, and wondered how thousands of people feeling terrible and scared, deal with these sensations when they don’t know if they will be mortally safe even just 2 hours forward.

Maybe it is because I read this article about ordinary citizens making decisions to detain children, grandmothers and others because their job requested it.

Maybe it is because many people I love, loudly proclaiming their kindest acts and that they are “not racist,” voted for a man who told them up front that he would make life harder for people with brown skin, and use torture, and throw the health of earth’s environment, and the health of many people into the fray. I thought we had risen above mean-spirited and selfish thinking decades ago…

I wonder what some folks will do when faced with an immediate and important decision to follow authority, or act in accordance with simple human decency? Will they be the “nice” citizens of Nazi Germany, who didn’t agree, but still did nothing to protect their neighbors? Will they say “no” when it really, really matters?

I plan to always act in harmony with my personal values. These values include the things I was taught as a child, and still adhere to today:  honesty, integrity, character, benefit-of-doubt, forgiveness, kindness, understanding, rational thought, smart analysis, love, humor, inclusiveness, sharing, generosity, altruism, principle over money, people over money, civil conversation, transparency (because one day you may be elected president), innocent until proven guilty, and listen to your mother.

Fortunately my mother taught me to always question authority. Why? Because she was horrified by the accounts of what ordinary people did in Germany to allow Nazis to rise and do the unspeakable, and she didn’t want me to ever “go along” with authority unless it was deeply understood, and chosen consciously.

Since our current leadership is not altruistic by nature, or fair, or Christian in its approach thus far, I am asking everyone who reads this to take the Pledge of Human Decency— in your heart— and to live by it.

Here it goes:

I pledge today to remember the best values by which I was raised, and those I adopted while in my most loving frame of mind.

I remember the principles that made me my kindest self. I embrace the ideas that have grown my family, increased my understanding, and ignited my compassion for others.

I pledge to never go backward into childish selfishness, hatred of others, or meanness. I pledge to act with simple decency, because I am an adult and I can choose my behavior every moment.

I consciously choose my words and deeds. I choose to behave like a grownup, as I help our world move in the direction of good values.
I will do this by any means befitting the situation.