Two triggers are part of this new posting. While my circle is small, maybe over time I can entice more followers.
1) the Boston tragedy seems to have truly bought most people together, not just in Boston but acrross the country. That is a good thing.
2) another trigger is that I have decided to be more active on Facebook. This has lead to more views and posting, some great, others depressing. Some postings are brilliant and kind hearted, others are mean spirited and from people who should not be allowed to post. But, freedom of speech is still protected, and it should be.
Tragedy should bring us together and bring out the best in all of us. We need to support our friends, neighbors, and even strangers. In Boston that mostly worked, for them and across the USA. Yet, we now find postings on facebook, unfortunately from people I know and perceived to be kindly, that want to label all Muslims as bad, because those perpetrators seem to have been driven by radical beliefs. They forget that the Oklahoma bombing, the Tucson tragic shooting, the Colorado massacre, and Newtown had nothing to do with Muslims. I can find more examples, but those of you who are alert and open minded have already gotten the point. Fear of what we don't have a closeness to seems to cause muddled thinking. Should we fear and prosecute Jihadists, absolutely, put all Muslims in that class, come on, get real.
Labels do little to bring us together or bring out the best in us. If a murderer is gay, does that mean all gays murder? Of course not. If a mentally ill person committed a crime and should not have a gun, we certainly should work to keep guns away from him/her, but let us not condemn your friend, neighbor, or family member who suffers from mental illness. Religion, is not the issue, nor is gun ownership, it is criminals who need to be stopped, with whatever measures it takes to control the criminality. And of course even that will always be limited by resources and other practical restraints.
One e-mail I recently received (unsolicited) attacked adding new background checks and of course used the 2nd amendment and an attack on Obama was part of the message. When I answered with what I thought was a reasonable objection and argument, another friend of the first e-mailer chimed in saying that criminals don't obey the law, this as an argument against more control. I responded and asked since that was a correct statement, did he propose to eliminate all laws. He did not answer. Our country need to look at individuals and move away from lumping people together and labeling. What in the hell does anyones sex life have to do with anything important? All Muslims are not bad, in my growing up days being Catholic was bad in the minds of some of my Protestant friends, my God, how naive and WRONG.
The politicians are among the worst of the abusers. Already the FBI and CIA, but even more than them, the President, are being criticised. They apparently mostly followed the laws already in place and did not spy on the Boston suspect after investigating, yet I am sure there will eventually be a congressional review of some sort to blame someone. They forget that some Congress members are now opposed to drones spying on American citizens, HMM, does that include all person here legally?
We need to come together. We need to be inclusive. We need to growl at politicians when they focus on blame, rather than solutions and when they perform on the re-election stage instead of doing their jobs.
Strong opinions are fine as long as the view is 1) rational 2) defended with facts, not emotion, and 3) with respect for others while expressing the freedom of speech we all enjoy. Listening is a good thing, an open mind is even better. No law will prevent every tragedy, nor will lack of one necessarily cause a disaster. Every event should not trigger new legislation, but if it makes sense in the long term we should pass one. We need to ask for accountability and criticize failure, not to have someone accept guilt, but to create a new path to avoid the mistake of last year. We did not properly protect the Embassy, lets figure out how to see if we can improve, but we do not have the resources to put armed guards all over the world at every Embassy. And money spent to blame Hillary is wasted.
Enough for now. Please influence everyone you know to speak kindly and have an open mind.
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