President Obama has decided to commit the U.S. to sending small arms to the rebels fighting a revolutionary war in Syria. Do you agree with this decision? What do you believe The New Spirituality would teach about this choice — and about the Syrian uprising itself?

With the Santa Monica shooting added to the list, do you think Americans are ready to have a serious discussion about ending easy access to guns — especially semi-automatic assault-style weapons, one of which was again used in this latest murderous rampage?

What is going on in Oklahoma? 17 more tornados, just days after the Big One? If you lived in Oklahoma, would you move? From a New Spirituality perspective, what would you say to the people of Oklahoma right now?

LET’S DISCUSS IT: What do you know about the new virus, Middle East respiratory symptom coronavirus, or MERS-CoV — called by the World Health Organization “a threat to the entire world”?

LET’S DISCUSS IT…How do natural disasters such as the Oklahoma tornado fit into the CWG statement that “there are no victims” in the world?

Should major pharmaceutical firms be asked to offer drugs to the poorest countries at prices that cover only their costs, and provide no profit?

BACKGROUND: The New York Times reports that “two companies that make vaccines against cervical cancer announced Thursday that they would cut their prices to the world’s poorest countries below $5 per dose, eventually making it possible for millions of girls to be protected against a major deadly cancer.” See the full report here.

The vaccines typically costs about $130 per dose in the United States, the Times reports.

LET’S DISCUSS IT: The executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association served notice to America on Saturday that “we will never surrender our guns.” In an address to the annual NRA Convention, Wayne LaPierre characterized his organization’s opposition to any kind of gun control, or even background checks on potential gun purchasers, as a flight against “elites.”

“Mr. President, you can give all the speeches you want. You can conjure up all the polls you can and call NRA members all the nasty names you can think of, but your gun control legislation won’t stop one criminal, wouldn’t make anyone safer anywhere,” LaPierre told the convention on Saturday. LaPierre and the NRA propose, instead, that current laws be enforced, that schools include armed guards, that the government rebuild a “broken mental health system,” and “for God’s sake, leave the rest of us alone!”, a CNN story on the NRA Convention reported.

What do you think? Do you believe that background checks on potential gun buyers, and other kinds of gun control measures — such as limits on the sale of  high capacity magazines that allow a gun to shoot multiple rounds in seconds — would be good for America, or do you believe this would be a violation of a sacred right, that all humans should have, to “keep and bear arms”?

LET’S DISCUSS IT: One of the men allegedly responsible for the Boston bombing has been killed in a confrontation with police. The second suspect has been caught. If he is tried and should be convicted of the bombing, what do you believe an appropriate sentence would be?

LET’S DISCUSS IT: Two questions….1. If North Korea launches water bound missiles in the days ahead as an unarmed test of its military hardware, what should be the response of (A) South Korea; (B) the United States; (C) Japan?

2. If North Korea launches armed missiles in the days ahead that strike and explode on South Korean or Japanese soil, or on U.S. outposts in the region, what should be the response?

LET’S DISCUSS IT:

What is the reason, do you think, that mandatory minimum sentencing for marijuana possession came into being in the first place? What, if anything, do you think might cause America’s  strongly conservative voters to reverse their positions on same gender marriage, marijuana use sentencing, gun ownership laws, abortion in the case of rape, working immigrants gaining citizenship, and other social issues?