What hope is there for us?

Oh my, What have we become?

 On my YouTube podcast page, I posted a video on my thoughts about the recent murder/assassination of political influencer Charlie Kirk. I expressed my sadness and my hurt over the senseless taking of his life. I mentioned that I did not agree with everything he said or stood for, which is true; however, after reflecting on the body of work that I had seen prior to his death, I realized that the principles he stood for were good. He spoke often about the construct of the family and how it has broken down and is now part of the problem in society. How we have made it more financially beneficial for single moms to raise children rather than supporting the two-parent family model. Now, that is just one issue, but I received some comments after posting that video, and one was a woman who is on my Facebook page, and she said that she asked another friend of mine what I was. This, in reference to what my political leanings were. This alone tells me that this person is not concerned with having conversations with a broad spectrum of beliefs, but rather only wants to know that she is talking with someone who will support her belief system. So, as I ruminated on this, I came up with some math with a little help from Pew and Gallup, and my initial estimations were not far off from their research. I estimated that about 5% of America fell into the fringe category of Left and Right—5% each side that is—and the polling concluded that somewhere between 5 and 8 percent each were the numbers. Which leaves about 84–90% of the rest of the country somewhere in between. It is within those percentages that I find myself. And depending of the topic of conversation, I can be a little left of center, and others a little right of center, but definitely center. I fall within the groups that want less government involvement on some issues and more on others. I am with the group that believes that the system is likely broken beyond repair. I am with the group that strongly believes in the First Amendment and equally with the group that believes in the Second Amendment. I believe in compassion for the downtrodden, and I also believe in making people earn what they receive in handouts. Even if it is just picking up trash on the highways. I believe in the family model, but also believe that resiliency in people make it possible to thrive in a single-parent household. There is no one answer or one solution to America’s problems, but to start solving them, we have to start communicating, make concessions, and treat those that don’t believe like we do with respect and common decency. And most importantly, we need to Think. Use our brains. We cannot continue to go in this direction without utter disaster reigning.