When people adopt the attitude that "you are with us or you are against us".
When people mix-up their worldly beliefs with their religious beliefs.
When reason is held hostage to emotional beliefs
When all of these things are occurring we arrive at the same horrid place over and over again.
Maybe it is just the cynic in me or maybe I am just completely jaded by this world and the events that unfold daily. I angrily want to write out a scathing piece comparing certain specific groups to others because they have much more in common than they would ever acknowledge. Some of my anger stems from the fact that there seem to be so many people in this world who actively hate other people and if anyone speaks out against their hateful words and actions well watch out because the tables quickly turn. Speak out against the cops killing another person and you will find yourself labelled as anti police. Speak out against racism and you are the racist. Speak out against religious extremism, your just screwed because if you don’t just stick with the Muslims you rile up the Christians, if you only mention Muslims you rile up the Muslims and those who do not blame all Muslims anymore than they blame all Christians.
The real truth is that we all harbor hate within ourselves against other people in this world. We can deny it and get angry about it when people point it out to us, but it is there. Now philosophically we could debate from here to eternity whether this hate stems from Judaeo based "Original Sin", Yin and Yang, or the nature of man; To me this is where we get hung up on the stupid bullshit of semantics, I quite frankly do not care how your mind has to grasp the problem, but dammit there is a problem and we need to start looking at solutions. Unfortunately to start looking at solutions we would actually have to admit we have problems, but it is always so much easier to shine light on others than to look into our own lives and I speak from experience. I keep trying to take on my own problems and change myself but I keep repeating the same mistakes, getting angry about the same things, hating the same attitudes and people. It is hard, in fact some days it is impossible not to feel the anger that I feel, but I keep trying because I believe if I can get it right then there is hope.
I am discouraged though because in what should be the greatest country, where despite a premature birth chained to the horrid reality of slavery, racism, genocide and institutionalized inequality, this ideal of a country based on liberty, equality and unity still falls so short.