Hijacking ideas

As a southerner in the United States I would like nothing more than to be able to fly the confederate battle flag. To me, it would symbolize pride in a culture where people stood against a tyrannical government and said, "You don't like us having an economic stronghold, so you apply unfair taxation on our exports, and that isn't fair." Yet, to most people it simply means, "I hate brown people." Politically correct history teaches us that the civil war was because of slavery, when in fact most southerners were poor and on about the same socioeconomic level as slaves. Slavery was on it's way out in the United States and many plantation owners were aware of it. There was a growing school of thought that resulted in slaves being given status as sharecroppers, it was found that men worked harder when they were working for themselves.

Freedom, so simple a word, yet so profound an idea.

The reason I can't fly this flag with pride, is that it has been hijacked by white supremacists and bastardized to come to be recognized as a symbol of hate. I must concede this fact. Do I want to argue continually with outspoken people who take offense to it? No. I know what it means to me, but to be caught in a loop of teaching people history is a waste of time and quite tedious.

This is a regular occurrence throughout history and it's happening every day. There are schools of thought that hijack what many people know to be good and wholesome, things that people live their life by. This drives people crazy, to see something they hold as sacred being burned, made fun of and ridiculed by ignorance. Yet, to grow, this usurping must be recognized and we must move on. Christianity has dealt with this for centuries. From the crusades, to people that kill abortion providers to people that protest funerals and warp the minds of children with ideas that teach hate as a second language.

Do you desire to fight this battle?

There are people who want to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center. Some of these people don't understand why this is offensive to others. It is offensive because peace loving Muslims have allowed their religion to be hijacked by people that wish to kill people that do not believe in and interpret their theology the same way they do. There are countless businesses that send money to organizations that fund this mindset, we know this. There are governments that we support with money that back this mindset, there are people we train militarily that, in turn, train people that will attempt to kill us, we know this.

There are people in Israel that do not understand why others not of their faith should get upset when they bulldoze existing homes to build places for Jews to live. There are people in Ireland that can not understand how a marriage in the United States can exist between a Catholic and a Protestant. There are people all over the world that can not understand how millions of individuals can walk into a building each week and freely give their money to an organization that hides men that molest children.

When priests molest children and are hidden by the hierarchy of the church, there is no way said church can be taken seriously. When leaders of a religion openly call for the destruction of western civilization, there is no way they can be listened to. When people speak of a god that calls for others to burn for eternity because they are born with a genetic code that makes them attracted to the same sex, those people are ignored and should read the actual book they hide their own hidden homosexual tendencies behind. When people protest a school that trains military personnel that end up training our enemies, they should ask themselves, "Who better to train our enemies than ourselves?" this way they know what we want them to and they can easily be defeated... When a government seeks to oppress its citizens via debt for the "common good" said government should be replaced when elections come around. When "news" becomes a voice of the corporate purses that sustain it, they should be ridiculed and ignored.

Jesus said, "I come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it."

Muhammad said, "He is not strong and powerful who throweth people down; but he is strong who witholdeth himself from anger.”

Buddha said, "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger."

Confucius said, "The superior man is satisfied and composed, the mean man is full of distress."

The religious texts are all similar in nature, from the Bhagavad Gita to the new english translation of the Bible, yet we choose not to read them in total, but pick out those things which best suit our personal agenda. To me the underlying truth of these works is that at some point someone had enough of listening to the crowd and took it upon themselves to speak openly and from their own minds. Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, Confucius, etc simply stood up and said enough.

The same is true with works not given by God but spoken by men, and claimed as such. The works of the founding fathers of this nation come to mind. When people have said, enough, and stepped away from the crowd and spoken the truth of their minds. When you do this you suffer, such as all of these people & deities did. People die for ideas, this has always been true and always will. How far are you willing to go for what you believe to be the truth?

There just simply comes a time when people must be responsible for their own actions and these awakenings begin with someone slapping this reality into us, while not giving a damn about what the crowd thinks.

So what do we as a society do with this mess that we have created over the total of our history?

We evolve, we learn, or we simply destroy ourselves... that's about as simple as it gets.

Step away from all labels, think and act for yourself, do not listen to what others tell you but find out for yourself. Accept the truth of your existence. Rise above ridicule and know that all life exists as one and its fate is in your hands. Life or death, its your choice. So don't build on what others have done, stare at a blank page, create your own thoughts. Make these thoughts ideas worth giving your life for. Peace should not come from the death of another, we have existed as humans long enough to learn this.