>Today, I listened to a nationally acclaimed radio talk show
host asking why the “liberal” media wasn’t placing responsibility on
Rosie O’Donnell, Al Franken and other “Christian-bashing liberals” for
the shooter in Colorado who entered a Christian place of worship and Christian Mission and
randomly killed several people before being shot himself. It seems the
talk show host assumed that the shooter was driven to his act by the
rantings of the “Left” against the Conservative “Right.”  The host also
wanted “equal time” (and I can only assume equal blame attributed) for what he
sees as the liberal media propensity for characteristically charging Conservatives and Christians with “hate-mongering” against
gays, feminists, immigrants and African-Americans.
    It turns out the shooter was actually a former employee (or volunteer) for Youth With A Mission, the site of the first attack and shooting. He had apparently had a falling out with the organization several years prior and had been writing threatening letters ever since. So it appears to have been a “Christian” against “Christian” crime. So much for the desire, or need, to implicate the liberal media.
    The second point the talk show host made is more troubling…because it is more likely founded in fact. There is a general consensus among certain segments of the population, and media, that Conservative implies a certain narrowness and exclusivity of thinking that condescends to others who are not mainstream and white. This, of course, is absurd.
    As is all stereotyping.
    But here’s the heart of the matter…or the lack of heart, as it were.
    Why are we still not evolved enough to stop blaming anyone, and anything other than ourselves, rather than take responsibility for the state of our lives and the state of our nation?  It neither serves us personally, nor collectively, to try and pass on to others the effects of the choices we make or fail to make.
    Violence and hatred in our society are not the result of Liberal Democrats, Conservative Republicans, Libertarians, Rosicrucians, Wiccans or any other single political or religious organization or movement. They are the result of each of us refusing to make the difficult ethical and spiritual choices around what is good versus what is convenient.
    When we stop holding hatred and violence in our hearts and minds we will stop creating them in our reality. When we stop creating them in our reality we will stop having to suffer the consequences of our own thoughts and actions.
    It will be easy to dismiss this as not pertaining to you since you don’t “hate” anyone and you aren’t “violent.” But before you dismiss it completely and let yourself off this hook, ask yourself if you truly accept and allow others their differences of thought and belief without harboring either disdain or condescension towards them. Ask yourself if when in your car someone cuts you off you either think or react in a way that is retaliatory or anger based. Because while a yes to either of these examples (or similar examples) does not not make you a murderer, they are all none-the-less the seeds of hated and violence.
    In order to truly eradicate from our world that which we find reprehensible we must start with our own choices of thought and action and be vigilant around them.
    While there’s more than enough “blame” to go around…blame is a dead-end circle leading nowhere. The path to a loving, peaceful, non-violent world is down a road populated with loving, peaceful, non-violent people.
    I’d like us to meet on that road. How about you?

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