Let's talk about Racism!

As a parent, you tend to remember the day your child comes home from school and asks “what are the definitions of racist and bigot”?
I think all good parents will answer the same way, “grab the dictionary and we’ll look them up”.
The day my son and I started this dance, the definitions didn’t sooth his worried brow. When I pressed him as to what the core of the problem was, he confided to me that he thought he was becoming a racist.
HELLO!
It seems a group of Black students were making life difficult for him at school and he was harboring more and more resentment toward them. This was of particular concern to him because his fist love, step father, step siblings and several of our friends were black.
And, he loved them all!
If he was becoming a racist, would he grow to hate the people he loved too? Big problem for a 17 year old mind.
Oh, p.s. pasty white single parent guy here!
We talked about it through dinner and into the evening with two conclusions:
He was not, and probably never would be a racist.
We needed a way to make sense of how some people can be so good and others so bad within any particular group.
Over the next two weeks we would continue the conversation as new thoughts presented themselves. Finally we developed a rule that we both felt we could live by.

Note: in my house all rules must work equally for all people. No special interests, no preferential treatment. With rare exceptions to the parental caveat “not until your 21”, he and I lived by the same rules.

The sense we made of (frankly) BOTH our feelings became know as the 10% Sludge Rule.
I offer it to you here, free of charge.

The 10% Sludge Rule:
Given any slice of humanity:
10% will be extraordinary people! People that we would be better ourselves if we were more like them.
80% will be good solid citizens. Honest, reliable, kind.
10% will be sludge that the world would be better off without.

Divide humanity in any fashion you choose. Red, yellow, black, white, man, woman, orientation, affiliation, religion, occupation, young old, whatever. Within that divide you will find heroes, friends and sludge.

On the days when you feel like the bottom 10% has camped out on your doorstep; remember 90% of that slice are people you want to know better. If you reach out to some of the bottom 10%, you both might move up a notch!
Also remember:
The top 10% gets 5% of the press.
The middle 80% gets none of the press.
The bottom 10% gets 95% of the press.
Take heart, it’s not as bad as it seems!

On Rev. Wright

Well, let's get this one put on the table for discussion.
This discussion does not include Senator Obama! He is a separate topic for another day.
I defend Rev. Wright's right of free speech and will defend it with my life. I am however amazed and disturbed that anyone could rise to his level of influence and power while despising the very fabric that enabled him to do so. He doesn't seem too upset about the new house being built for him out of church funds. I have heard two rumors with regards to his new home:
1. It's a $1,000,000.00 plus home.
2. It's in a gated community no where near his old church.
Can anyone please verify the fact or fiction of these claims?

I am "up to here" with people defending his statements and supporting his role as leader in this church.

Let's throw a little common sense at it and see if it still stands up.

For the sake of discussion, let's say that we all have a crazy uncle. We'll call him uncle Bob.
Uncle Bob's a nice guy. He's generous, caring, reliable, but he has a bad habit of reducing any topic to "they're a bunch of fa**ot's and God will burn them in hell". Oh Kay Uncle Bob!
Uncle Bob's a nice guy, and you love him. He is now, and always will be a part of your family.
But.........
Do you hold him up as a leader in your family and community?
Do you video tape his grotesque rants and share them with other people?
Do you let him give the toast at your wedding?
Do you expose your children to him as often as possible?

If you agreed with his rant, YES!
If you disagreed, not so much.

I'm also "up to here" with exasperated defenses of:
1. It's being taken out of context.
2. You're taking a few minutes of speech out of a life times work.

IT'S CALLED EDITING!!!!!!!!!

I could always edit Uncle Bob's flaming hatred out of the family video!
Unless of course I felt it was OK, or perhaps even shared his beliefs.

I would either shield my family and friends from Uncle Bob (if I disagreed),
or support his speech with something intellectual like "yeah, so what" if I agreed!
I'm not seeing or hearing either from his community.

Help me become a "brighter bulb"!
What does your common sense tell you?

No Zealots!!!

Hopefully you noticed that one of "the rules" was NO ZEALOTS!
Why, because zealots are blinded to alternative points of view. They are hopelessly locked into a mindset that they will not allow to be examined, contended or (parish the thought) changed. They are completely invested in their own interests and deliberately callous to any opposing thought.
I believe that zealots are the worst of the worst, and beyond their particular brand of zealotry, interchangeable. That's right, not a pennies worth of difference between them. The most whacked out left wing loon is no better than the most self righteous right wing fanatic.
Have you ever noticed that if you take one zealots battle cry and replace the nouns, you have a polar opposite zealots battle cry.

i.e. Any legislation limiting a woman's right to chose is a direct erosion of Roe V Wade.
to: Any legislation limiting the right to bare arms is a direct erosion of the 2nd Amendment.
to: Any legislation limiting limiting access to the Internet is a direct erosion of the
1st amendment.

It seems that the common elements of zealotry are "Legislation" and "Erosion".

To their credit, our founding fathers legislated that our rights should never be eroded. They also clearly laid out that the role of the government should not be too intrusive on the lives of the individuals. To the exclusion of the 18th amendment (which didn't work out to well) most if not all legislation through the 1970's protected and empowered all Americans to be equal in the fundamental liberties promised by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Somehow in the 70's there was a dramatic shift in the direction of legislation and since then it seems that every time a bill is passed, some liberty is lost.

Zealots have taken over. Too much is never enough.

Please prove me wrong!

Is it possible to live in the middle? Can we still be fair to all?

Reply with any legislation that you feel is equal in it's protection of our basic rights.
Or just vent using Common Sense.