To my shame, it is very easy for me to look directly at someone and see an ideology, without ever taking the time to consider that person as a human, with hopes and dreams, with personal  aspirations, and sometimes I wonder if they are looking at me and I am being sized up the same way. At times I have been far less than I should have been. All of these things return to you as you get older, and because of changing perspective, ideology changes, but radical change is rare. I am far less willing to cast the first stone now, even when I am against something personally, but even now I have limits to what I will tolerate. I am still a great believer in absolutes, and I believe people will bury you in the gray areas. I don’t think in terms of black, and white, and gray, but rather right and wrong, so if you are a subjective person, I’m not going to make your favorite list, and that’s alright because it’s a great big world out there, and we can co-exist.

When I force you to give me something, whether by gun or by taxes, I have made you my slave. I have no right to anything that is yours. And you have no right to anything that is mine. If this is hard for you to understand, you are part of the problem. The solution to this is charity, but the ones that cry greed the loudest are the least charitable. They are also the loudest among us when that fact is pointed out. You scream for your fat, lazy, and impotent federal government to do this, and then do that, all while you do everything in your power to pay little or nothing for those things to be done. How long will we continue to co-exist in a country as politically and socially polarized as we are, I have no idea, but this can’t go on, and nobody is looking for a solution.

Now here’s the thing about solutions in this country today… If you had one, and  if the other side took the time to look at it, they would rip you to shreds and drag you through the streets before they let it gain any traction. I wish that this didn’t bother me so much but it does. I am a news junkie. I also read history, and this mentality always takes you somewhere. I don’t like our destination. We could be so much more, and I think of two radical ideas that we desperately need to revisit because it can still change the world…

• Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind.
• Love your neighbor as yourself.

Or get ready for the alternative.

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