Regarding Moderation

Her smiled turned oddly joyful as she described the film to us. "They went into rich people's houses when they were away, and just messed things up!" Seeing our confusion, she explained, "They really didn't do anything harmul! Mess it up, put pictures in the refrigator, toss couches into the pool, things like that!" Some did chuckle, others, including myself, were horrified. "The point of the film was, where did all the radicals go? Where did all the people that protested for Civil Rights and Equality go! Where's our fight? Where's our revolt? Where's our rebellion? Why aren't we protesting?"

She went on further in the lecture to explain that nothing has changed. People are still minoritized, people are still discriminated by race. Maybe it's because of my disbelief, but I looked around at my classroom, where whites and hispanics were sitting side-by-side, one mixed group even a romantic couple. Confused by this, I ponder O'Reilly's words last week as I rode the bus into school.

"The liberal left live in the past!" He proclaimed, as if he was preaching, "They are still living in the sixities and fifties and seventies! They have their Vietnam War, Iraq, and now they are looking for their Civil Rights Movement, and they are taking refuge in the Jena Six."

I pondered his words, and her words, and I honestly can't come to a conclusion. I'm nowhere near ready to say that fear tactics, rebellion, striking, pushing, and oppressing one group, the rich, in whatever form or color they may come, will provide greater benefit and end segragation against the poor of certain colors. But I am equally unable to look at the poor and not pity for them, hope for them, and be afraid of what will happen to me if I end up among them. All those aside, we should do something for the poor, but is persecutation of another group, the group that the vast majority achieved our American Dream, and take away the very rights we wanted to give them, that we have fought countless battles and are fighting now to keep "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" for? And wasn't the overtaxation of a group of people to benefit another why this country exists in the first place?

But I don't have a solution for the poor either. Money needs to come from somewhere, money needs to form and aid these, who, for whatever reason or another, are unable to even think of pursuing the American Dream as well. Instead, they are far more concerned about dying, an ultimate end to any dream, save a possible nightmare. Yet, is robbing from others to give to that the main route? To take from those that work, that strive, that have the opportunity to make more, and instead make them very close to those we are trying to save. I think not, for not only is it facist but it is also purely communist, a system we have seen rise and a system we have seen fall, utterly.

And I cannot not ignore the Bible in this regard either, but it also makes things much more complicated. There will always be poor among you, blessed are the poor, care for the sojurner. In regards to this, I have no compass and find myself swamped to where I cannot even feel my heart in the midst of it.

Then is my solution, being unable to swim in a storming sea, to go with moderation, as I have seen so many of my peers do? Or it is to just stick to a side, hold on, and find ground enough to push forward and analyze?

A Rant, for sure.

School attacks, school defends, school runs amuck and doesn't even stop to make amends. Is that which I am reading the thing that is right? Is that which I write currently in the light? Are questions about morality and neutrality even the questions I should pose to this wanting equality? Is a political agenda that into every class is set something I must beset or something I should forget?

It is not easy being of the opinion of the right in a school sans-right. But, I suppose that means I should test my own opinions, my own thoughts, my own beliefs, my own desires, and put them to a fiercer crucible than they themselves can offer, so that when their flames of want and question arise, my ideals won't even be scarred from the flames. Though, that's a scary thought, and one I should be rather careful on, for it borders on becoming another thought, another route I could pursue; complete and blind ignorance. I could simply ignore what they say, and I have done so a few times (yesterday in Non-Fiction is a great example) but that leaves a lack in what I do and how I do it. That, and the teachers don't play fair very often. In introducing their opinion, and rarely is that not a heavy, heavy layer, they will, in the middle of it, introduce the assignment and then leave it be, never mentioning the assignment again until it's due. But then, we are talking politics, and people rarely play fair in politics, since we have a falliable tendency, as humans, to dehumanize our opponents or enemies. To recognize one like that as a human being, an equal, a respectable person with just as much rights, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and having spent as much time arriving to their conclusions as we have there, rarely affords us confidence to tackle them and address them. But maybe we really need to get over it. The truth always prevails, and the truth will come out. If maybe in debates, instead of shouting, screaming, kicking, and literally fighting, we chose to instead address our opponents respectively, lined out our life-notes side-by-side, and then discussed and provided evidence on our key differences, there would actually be progress.

Then again, we can't have something as healthy as progress in a world that eats its own refuse and calls it a meal, can we?

Two months!