I Have Been Thinking.

I was talking to someone today that came into my business. Just by looking at him he would be the type of person you would consider a "redneck". He is polite and fairly well spoken and didn't say anything out of the ordinary, but I thought of him as a redneck. While I was talking to him the "light bulb" went on and I started thinking. Is this man any less of a man than me or anyone else? Does this man not deserve representation just because he is different than I think he should be? Does he not have a right to his own opinions free from governmental influence? Even if he had some skewed perception of how the world should be he is a citizen of this country and deserves every right that we all do. He may have hated blacks, Jews, whites, Asians or Christians, I don't know, but it is his right to feel that way. We cannot force our beliefs on people. We can not legislate that people like each other or that they must spend time together. These are all personal issues that the government has no business being involved in. You don't have to like anyone that you don't want to like and that is your right. I don't have to be politically correct if I don't want to. We spend too much time worried about offending someone else instead of just being ourselves. I don't have to like you to get along with you.

Let's talk about hate groups for a minute. The SPLC loves to put out their little hate list every year and they include a strange collection of people in this list. It seems to me that the one with the most hate is Morris Dees and the SPLC. They hate everyone that speaks their mind. Let's take the Nation of Islam. They are listed as a hate group. Let me tell you that I lost many nights of sleep since I found out that the Nation of Islam is a hate group. Not really, I could care less if the Nation of Islam hates me. I say more power to them at least they have enough guts to say what they think instead of being some cowering dog that lies in the corner afraid of coming out because it might hurt someone's feelings. I don't agree with the Nation of Islam, but I do agree that they have a right to say whatever they want to say as long as they do not promote violence against anyone. I do not advocate that anyone can do anything to physically harm anyone. My point here is that all of this hate group stuff is garbage. You don't have to like anyone you don't want to and it is none of anyone's business, but your own.

I hope that people can sit back and think for a minute about what it means to be a citizen of this great nation. We have a lot of freedoms that other countries do not. There are people all over the world fighting and dying so they can enjoy some of these same freedoms. We already have these freedoms so don't be afraid to exercise them. What you don't have and I don't have is the freedom from being offended. We may not like it, but that is the way life is. If people could just understand that last little sentence then maybe we could have some understanding in this country.

Austin