B365V2.118 - Acquisition problems

So I am reading a blog entry the other day and not one of my own and it involved one of those internal struggle type things, a basic should I or shouldn't I question was being asked by the author. After deciding to forgo principle for personal benefit the first thought I had (and don't pretend you understand how I think, you don't) was this was a clearly stated in the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, rule 98 to be precise, “Every man has his price.”

It got me to thinking what would the price tag on my principles be, if I have any principles to begin with. If I believed in the devil, I could see me making a deal with him for say, my mother's mind to be back to a fully functioning thing. For me, no principle would be worth more than that. But I don't believe in higher or lower powers, which is why I never tell anyone I will be praying for them, I will say they are in my thoughts, but I never use the word pray, because I don't and I fail to see how my lying is somehow comforting. Anyone who knows me, besides the way I think, knows that I find religion to be a farce, a tool to subjugate the masses and that is it. I share Christopher Hitchens philosophy that heaven would be like a celestial North Korea, that entrance is only granted based on sworn allegiance to its leader.

But I would like to think that what few principles I do have I tend to stand by pretty firmly. After all, I haven't spoken to my father in something like a quarter of a century. It sounds more impressive that way than if I say 25 years, and it is a situation which I do not see changing any time in the near future. And it would have been to my fiscal benefit at least to keep in touch with him, he was always better off than my mom in that regard. I would have lived in a house as opposed to a trailer with a leak in the bedroom ceiling for starters.

That doesn't answer the question of whether or not I have a price though, I guess I would like to think I don't, but I am not awash in temptation either. Besides, Rule of Acquisition 109 clearly states, “Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.”