Dear Editor:

In 2018, October through December, our POTUS said he doesn’t care, eight or more times. He didn’t care if Christine Ford was telling the truth about her sexual assault. He didn’t care about an exploding national debt. He doesn’t care to understand global warming even though he doesn’t believe it is a hoax. He doesn’t care because he won’t be here when it happens. He didn’t care about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, “I have no business with Saudi Arabia, couldn't care less.”

These statements were under different scenarios that the president of our country made indicating he doesn’t care even when every member of his own family would become victims as would U.S. citizens.

It is worrisome to think that the “I don’t care” response is expanding into more areas of life, by POTUS and others even when we all should have a moral care, concern, or interest in our lives and the lives of family and neighbors. If we “don’t care” about our own lives, what is the impact?

When individuals and institutions do not care, the results can be moral apathy, moral callousness, and finally moral indifference. Apathy and callousness are stages on the way to indifference, which is one of the world's most dangerous and devastating results. Is war one major indicator that the value of life is dropping more rapidly than Wall street? The number of hidden dangers, like Exxon’s climate impact, or Johnson & Johnson’s asbestos, or drinking water dangers, would indicate egregious moral apathy has caused great harm that travels through time leading to total destruction of our planet.

Other definitions for use of “I don’t care” can be a common non-answer to almost any sort of question, which really means “I don’t have an opinion.” Can we afford moral indifference to grow? Moral indifference is the complete absence or silencing of moral emotions. Without these moral emotions, our moral systems cannot exist. Yet we are content to blame the death of a 7-year-old on others rather than look for where we failed in our duties. We need to care enough to save lives, including our own.

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb