I think I need to take a shower…

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Everyone needs to take a deep breath, step back and think.

First, we need to acknowledge that most of us, Liberals and Conservatives alike, are good, well intentioned people. Although most of us agree about the problems that need solving, many times we strongly disagree about the solutions.

Where we go wrong is in taking the easy way out and attacking the other person at a personal level. This never works.

Think of the last time you had an argument with your spouse, and it degraded into a screaming match. How did that go? Was anything gained by yelling, throwing in a bunch of memories of past wrongs, and not really listening to the other?

No. In fact, it took weeks, maybe months just to get back to ground zero.

That is what we have on an international level- a bunch of five year olds throwing temper tantrums, each screaming at the other and pointing fingers.

I further believe that many of our leaders are corrupt with power, and love to see us slice each other to pieces. As long as we are divided and fighting each other, we won’t be looking at them too closely.

As Conservatives, we need to stop saying that the Dems don’t have an agenda. They do! Here it is:

1. Impeach the President for a war they voted for
2. Remove the tax cuts Bush put in place
3. Remove or cancel any restrictions on illegal immigration
4. Put liberal,(progressive)judges in the Supreme Court
5. Increase the power of the UN
6. Attack 2nd amendment rights
7. Increase our submission on international law
8. Leave Iraq, possibly before the Iraqi government is ready to take charge of its new government.
9. Possibly pass a national health care package
10. Reduce funding for our Military

If you don’t want that, vote cfor Conservatives. If you do, vote for the Liberals.

See, how easy was that? No personal attacks- just a straight address of the issues.

Now, can we have a discussion on the issues? How soon before I get personally attacked?

1. So what? You conservatives don’t really care about human rights. We Democrats have the market on that. I already wrote about this, when I wasn’t writing about anime. How dare anyone else get attention for writing about this but us. Besides, they’re not dead YET. Whah. Whah, whah, whah.

2. So what? Let them all kill each other and let God sort them out.

3. So what? Let’s talk about how Islam is intrinsically messed up since it doesn’t recognize human rights like we enlightened Westerners do.

4. So what? Life sucks in lots of places.

5. So what? This has been happening for years.

And then there have been the all-too-rare comments acknowledging that religion is used to cloak actions, (particularly by those whose political power is drawn from their religious stature) and while a religion can’t be changed, a culture’s acceptance of certain acts CAN be.

Should anyone wonder why more people don’t get involved writing about human rights violations, this has been a perfect example.

Most countries at least give lip service to human rights, so this may be a common ground to begin a worthwhile discussion.

Start with religion and you end up arguing a millenium of offenses, many of which may not have ever happened.

We have so much work to do in the civil rights arena. A friend of mine talked about meeting a beautiful young woman from Afghanistan. Through an interpreter, she asked this young woman, who had been freed from the previous regime, what her and her friends thought about sex. Her answer was she didn’t have any friends, she had never spoken to anyone about sex, didn’t know anything about it herself, and was forbidden, EVER, to leave the house, for any reason. Period.

Although I am in favor of self protection, it seems to me that if you gave a gun to this young woman, she won’t have the courage to shoot it anyway, because she would have to weigh the consequences. She would probably be stoned to death.

We have a long way to go to resolve these issues, and most will not be solved with a war. It may take generations of dialog. We may not resolve it before someone blows us up.

Agnostically Yours,
– Mark

Basically “everywhere”.
That’s the gist of it.
Sorry to be so (apparently) obtuse.

All religons are wrong.
They all promote superiority and intolerance by their very nature.
“The” Way to God.

Religons are DEAD.

Genuinely encompassing a true sense of Spirituality – day by day – is the only Way.
Like now. Like at the Happy Mart. Like when you feel rise of Negative Emotions and decide to stop them “in their tracks”.

ANY doctrine advocating violence – is False.