Notes on Exclusion, Liberty, and Equality

Just to be crystal clear...

I will *die* fighting for this country and your right to live your own life as you see fit.

I swore an oath to defend my country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I will continue to honor that oath.

Let us be clear, though.  You do not have a right to tell me that I am not living my life correctly, simply because I do not live the way that you do, or believe in what you believe.  You do not have a right to impose your religious or ideological beliefs on me, nor do you have a right to deny my humanity or my very existence just because your belief system claims I should not exist.  

I am dismayed that political factions have formed around platforms that insist I cannot be permitted to exist, or that others should have the ability to deny my rights because I make them uncomfortable.  I am disturbed to hear religious leaders preaching a message of hatred and intolerance, with a few insisting that I should be murdered.

A politics of exclusion or a faith of hatred have no place in a free and civilized culture that promises liberty equality for all.

Liberty is the value that proclaims that people should be free to think, speak, and act as they choose as long as they do not offend the freedom and rights of others.

Equality is the value that holds that all people must be treated fairly and with dignity and be able to embrace opportunities for education, economic success, political involvement, and a fulfilling life.

These are supposed to be basic values of our society.  There are those who pine for a mythical ‘good old days’ where they would be free to deny liberty and equality to others, to preserve their position of privilege.  I hold these people to be the unwitting domestic enemies of our society, standing in the way of liberty and equality for those less privileged than themselves.

I fight for the rights of the marginalized, with education and the sword of knowledge, trying to break down the barriers of ideology and perverse belief systems that seek to preserve inequality.

I will act to defend myself and others, all of those who are accidentally or deliberately impacted by those seeking to reserve or expands mechanisms of inequality, who seek to suppress liberty.  I understand that there is a fear that as others gain some privilege, that the privileged may lose, but that fear is unfounded.

Privilege is not a zero-sum game.  There is not a finite supply to be hoarded.