Components of Spirituality # 4: Think for Yourself

Everyone has some things they want to say and share.  In the USA, this is "free speech."  Free speech is GREAT.   Hopefully, my free speech here will be tempered.  I won't use profanity and will attempt from belittling or "talking down," to anyone.  It's more than OK to disagree with me but please refrain from threats or extreme anger.  I will respect your thoughts and try to learn from what you have to say.

My first blog subject is "political" today.  I have some questions:

Why does there seem to be so much anger abroad about the folks we elect to office?  Is it the media, who seem to delight in offering these angry folks a forum on TV and elsewhere?  Is it those who raise their voice to a "fever pitch," drowning out more moderate opinion? 

When aspiring politicians use the term "socialist" to identify their opponent, how do they define "socialist?" 

Why do we, the electorate, allow "muckrakers" (media personalities who attempt to market hate, anger and even violence by inference sometimes) any credibility in influencing our opinions?

Not so long ago, the "buzz word" in politics was "liberal."  Any politician calling their opponent "a liberal" was attempting to belittle their opponent and scare the electorate into voting for them, rather than their "liberal" opponent.  But the term "liberal" has been overused to the extent that it is not a "negatively defining term" to apply to one's political opponent anymore.

So "socialist" has become the new political buzz term to negatively identify one's political opponent.

My challenge to readers of this blog: 

1. Look up the terms "conservative," "moderate" and "liberal" on the web or in any handy dictionary.  Then, "in the silence of yourself," ask yourself which of the 3 words, by definition, you would like applied to you. 

2.  Look up the word "socialist" in the same source.  How many different definitions of "socialist" do you find.?  Are every one of those definitions of "socialist" so repugnant that any of them evolving in the USA, is unthinkable or un-American?

The aim of this blog today, is to help any reader, stop and think and define political terms for themselves, using a dictionary or dictionary-type source, rather than allowing someone else to define a word and making it "bad" according to the speaker's definition.

Think for yourself. 

Whatever the outcome of thinking for yourself (conservative, moderate, liberal, socialist, or something else), using the dictionary definition you find and most like, rather than allowing another, ESPECIALLY someone seeking political office, to do your defining and thinking for you, will be better. 

It will by YOU. 

And, oh by the way, better for everyone,  better for America.

Walter Hopewell - Friend of the Universe