I have been trying to create this post for months now.  It’s been drafted with several different angles, none of which seemed adequate to describe the desperate feeling that has been growing in the pit of my stomach, the feeling that everything is going to shit, that we are on a runaway train straight to hell, and that demons and sodomy are not the worst things that await.

I’ve always been idealistic.  When, many years ago, “Why can’t we all just get along?” was the pop-phrase of the day, I was the one thinking, “Well, why can’t we?”  Really, is it so hard?

And the answer is: Yes, apparently, for a significant portion of the world population, it is extremely difficult to be tolerant, to be kind, to overlook perceived faults, to forgive those things which aren’t really injustices but which are taken as such in order to insure that one’s place in life is assured.

Why is this so?  Is it because of religion?  Is it because of politics?  Upbringing?  Were all those angry people out there beaten as children, or not beaten enough?  Is there some secret club of  haters of which the rest of the world is unaware?

Have we, as a society, been so intent on teaching “every-man for himself” that we’ve forgotten the Golden rule?

No, I say.  These may be symptoms of the problem, but they are not, ultimately, the root.

At the root of the problem is choice.  We make the choice every day to be polite, courteous, giving, tolerant, happy, righteous.

Or we choose to be bullies.

The bullies of the world will use any excuse to gain their way, to push their agenda, to hurt anyone that they like simply because they have the power to do so.  Bullies will stretch the boundaries of law to the breaking point, step beyond, and cry foul when anyone tries to stop them.

And we are letting them do it.

Every day, these people are getting away with more violence, more hate, more murder.  They’re the reason that the rest of the world is running scared.

Well, I’m tired of hiding in fear.  I’m tired of being surrounded by people who would hurt me at first chance, and I’m sick of the fact that many of those people trying to hurt me are in positions of authority within society.

I’m done letting the bullies win.  I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but from this point forward, I will be fighting those bastards tooth and nail, and I’ll be damned if I let them drive this world any further into the ground.

I’m taking back my planet.