In Honor of the Dynamic of Humanity

Here we are in the annual holiday season in the US. This year's version carries so much weight... between those things with the Duck Dynasty crew and all those issues with various holiday displays, it's difficult to try and understand how and why we got here.

My stepson calls me a 'hermit'... but even given that he is right (I disagree), I am in no way wise enough to gather the full grain harvest of these divisions.

Questions...

I wonder why we hang out scarlet letters... calling people (subject)-'phobics' on any of many topics when they don't agree with a preferred viewpoint. The basic effort here is to suggest that some people 'fear' (that's the definition of the suffix, 'phobia', btw) things when in fact... fear has no part of the equation.

We regularly and thoughtlessly stereotype millions of people -complete strangers we will never know- based on things like nationality, regional location, race, political leanings, religion, ethnicity, viewpoint and yes, sexual preference. We are a planet of almost 9 billion people... all of us as individually unique as our fingerprints. We aren't machines and we should never, ever wish for a day when we are all programmed to think identically.

We all have so many, many personal beliefs and often we feel called to express them by way of comments to websites like this and others. The question that follows is, however... should those views and thoughts, often limited to just a few sentences of text, carry the weight of being judged by them... by people we don't even know?

What do we dare say today, in this culture and age, that we then do not later find ourselves second-guessing... not for our beliefs, but because of possible reprisal?

These are thoughts for me this holiday season... and they have grown and been magnified with each passing year.

For all of you, my fellow ATS members, a blessed holiday season. May this world heal before the self-inflicted wounds take their final toll.