"Seek, and ye shall find"

I know the rw can/do at times bring up how some on welfare/ssdi/unemployment/etc abuse the system and hold those examples up as reasons to cut back or end such programs.

They cherry pick the few out of the many.

But I also see the same from the left when it comes to religion and guns (as two examples).

- We defend people who practice Islam against the RW and tell them to not judge all people of a faith by what some who claim to follow it do. Does the same not apply to Christians/Jews/Buddhists/etc? A few, or a small percent, can be seen to do things many would not agree with but there are many within a faith who dedicate their lives to helping others. Why don't they ever get any press? (see here as one example: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1101053 ) - for every one negative story one can dig up in the news there are a ton of good ones that are not reported in the local/national news because the press prefers negative stories.

And that just helps to re-enforce negative stereotypes. I read a ton of small, local, papers and see all the time people from churches out helping people with food, bills, etc ( see here: http://www.usnpl.com/ ) regardless of their faith and such.

Are there some RW nutjobs out there? Oh yeah. Some seriously off the deep end fundies that I and others should, and do, bring to light. But are they the majority - do they define all of a faith? Not IMHO.

- Guns. Of the many, many, millions here in the US that own guns how many actually use them in crimes or to hurt others? Percent wise not many - but again the negative gets the press.

Could you imagine the news if they covered how many people each day who owned guns did not use them to harm others? There would not be enough time to cover such things.

Have watched some shows of late about gangs (MS13/etc). These folks would shoot someone without a thought - and could care less if they carried a concealed weapon. They are not about to obey the big laws on murder, why would they even care one wit about a concealed carry law? The people who go to the classes, apply for the license to carry, pay for it (like my dad - who rarely carries anyway)- are not the ones you/I need to worry about.


... We can all look for the negative to back up how we feel about something, but have you tried of late to look up things (news wise at least) that challenge those ideals? There are many people who home school - If I want to I can look around and find some negative stories to make it look like doing such is a terrible thing. I can also find many stories of success for the same.

We are a big tent. America is a melting pot. I have certainly (and will be again I am sure) wrong on some issues because I simply looked for things to prop up my biases instead of looking at the bigger picture and all of the good/bad relating to issues.

I am reminded of what Jesus once said "Seek, and ye shall find". If you only seek the negative, that is what you will find.

aka Flip Wilson, used to say, 'What you see is what you get'

Flip Wilson Wikipedia entry



This of course, has a double meaning. Meaning that you get what you are capable of seeing emotionally and psychologically, and what you are physically/optically seeing.

Every time I make a point about the excesses of radical Islam, I always feel pressured to include a similar criticism of the Christian Far Right lest I be accused of not making the proper obligatory denunciations of our own Christian extremists here at home.