Saturday, February 03, 2007

A Paraochial Snot

Sure I am, and it'll do you no good to expect an apology. My family is up first with me, followed by my friends, my townsfolk, my region, my State, and my Nation and then the World. I manage to keep my humanity and see the rest when I'm looking at any one but my loyalties are pretty clear. My family has pretty simple needs so what is good for it is not harmful. Neither my town nor region have inflated ideas of success and their good tends to be good for everybody else. Sometimes I wonder about my State's ideas, sometimes they get the idea that a lot of us can just go hang, I don't much care for that. My nation has the capacity to be a huge force for good, but when it gets its head up its rear it can make quite a mess for its people and the world.

Here's the deal, I can see capabilities in people and organizations and I'm offended when they act less than, when they pick narrow favored interests, especially the elites and stomp on those who have little to resist with. I admire hard work, courage, and intelligence but none of those in their own right trumps compassion or general humanity. I absolutely loath politicians who seek office for any reason other than the good of their fellow citizens and those who attack and denigrate the citizenry for being of a different mind.

The idea of free speech, press, and religion is for us to make something out of all these differences that is larger than any one point of view. A something that composes my family, friends, townsfolk, etc. I have some very conservative religious Republican friends, I wouldn't help them get elected to high office, but I am more for having them as friends, this is where we should be, a wider world than ourselves.

Yep, I get pretty snotty when something this simple gets screwed up.

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