Random Thoughts

Football season and the baseball pennant races are driving out some of the hateful political posts.  

Don't assume anyone else believes the same way you do, we are all different.

Terrorists don't represent Islam anymore than deranged shooters represent gun owners.

Everybody should take some deep breaths and appreciate being alive.

We need to make the world a better place while we are here.

Hate is distrucive and eats at us from the inside if we let it.

Every person has the same right to be here as you do.  You have he same right as they do.  Accept that.

Government is supposed to serve the common good, not special interests.

Term limits take away people's right to choose who they want, even if you don't like the winners.

Best weapon we have is to get out and vote.

Second best weapon is getting others to vote.

If most of the country supports something you don't agree with, that's called democracy.

If you only support some of the freedoms in the constitution, you don't support any.

Being an American

What makes someone an American?

Do you have to be a citizen?

Do you have to be here with the approval of the Government?

Do we have some qualifying standard?

Do you have to say the pledge of allegiance or salute the flag or stand for the national anthem?

I think being an American has pretty much always meant trying to be free and trying to improve yourself.

Our defining characteristic is that we are a nation of immigrants who came here at some time for a better opportunity. (Even native Americans came here from Siberia).

This desire to have freedom and the right to succeed is in my opinion the heart of the American spirit that is the defining characteristic.

Being an American doesn't mean you have to always support the Government.  Going back to abolitionists, woman suffragettes, the civil rights movement, the fight for sexual equality, real Americans disagreed with the Government and demanded change.

This is because they love freedom.

We don't have cookie cutter Americans, we are all different and we all have the right to fight for what we believe in.

We can disagree with each other and we can fight for things that might be polar opposites, but as Americans we should respect each others right to fight for what they believe in.

Otherwise we dishonor all those who died defending that right.

American Values 2

The Bill of Rights guarantees us Freedom of Speech.  This is not absolute since we still have laws against slander and libel, but everyone has the right to express their opinion.

Of course it should be pointed out that the Bill of Rights only limits the Government, not other people so if you express an unpopular opinion you may very well suffer social consequences.

In the not so distant past, getting your opinions heard outside of your soapbox range was sometimes difficult and required press coverage or possibly widespread word of mouth.  Now of course we have social media and there a chance that something will "go viral" and spread like, well a virus.

This is both good and bad.  In the past we had some filters on what we were exposed to.  Possibly the filters were bad but in general the media followed certain rules related to integrity.  There has always been some media that didn't follow those rules and regularly reported space alien abductions, but we knew what those publications were and while some were faithful and believing readers it was pretty clearly a fringe group.

However we now have so much bad information available that the only real filter is self imposed.  I'm not the first to say this but not everything posted on the internet is true.  Just finding some story that alleges some outrageous accusation doesn't mean the person actually did anything.

There are ways to check, fact checking and urban legend web sites help, but I see so much misinformation repeated without any "filter" that I don't think the sites are used as much as they should be.

Every freedom has a corresponding responsibility that requires us to use our freedom wisely.  In the rise of many dictators going back to ancient Rome and probably before, it was the strong leader who promised to restore public morals and greatness that ended up taking freedoms away from everybody.

Our freedoms are precious and we need to respect them, not abuse them.