When one side tries to use reason. and the other side uses guns

[SoCalDem]

This seems to be the perpetual dilemma.

We seem to have always been locked in combat with fundamentalists of one sort or another. Americans often equate fundamentalism with snake-handling religious sorts who seem to be against most things, but fundamentalism exists in all religions and in all philosophies. These are the folks who do NOT welcome change of any kind.

This weekend I was introduced to Folke Bernadotte (via Al Jazeera), and was amazed that I had never heard of this wonderful man.

After watching the 3 part documentary of his life, I could not help but think about AnwarSadat & Menachem Begin, and Dr Tiller and Dr Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers... and JFK and Bobby Kennedy..and so many others we have lost.

These folks all had a message that did not "resonate" with fundamentalists. These people had long range plans that were about more than a fast bandaid. These people were thinkers .

Fundamentalists do not like thinkers. They know their ideas are stale and useless, but they refuse to even think there might be a better way to handle whatever problems exist, so their only option is to kill the person they cannot agree with.

This act does not necessarily kill the ideas of the dead person, but it does change history.

The radical fundamentalists who are now raging in the Middle East and Africa (and figuratively now, in America) are similarly focused. They are only interested in killing those who do not agree with them.

We can call them crazy...lunatics..deranged..whatever.. but we cannot ever really stop them.

All we can do is to keep trying to convince enough thinking people to stop electing crazy fundamentalists who use their power by throwing gasoline on every fire they can find.

There are economic fundamentalists
There are climate fundamentalists
There are education fundamentalists
There are anti-civil rights fundamentalists

We can fight their nonsensical theories, but we can never convince them, because their fundamentalist beliefs tell them that THEY are right and we are wrong. They refuse to see what is right in front of them. They are reminiscent of the anorexic 80 lb girl who sees a fat girl when she looks in a mirror.

It all seems so hopeless sometimes, and makes me glad that I am 65 and not 25

[hollysmom]

1. Gun livers should move to Somalia - the biggest gun rules there

it should be a gun lovers paradise

[Jamaal510]

5. They'll unfortunately never do that,

because, you know...it being in Africa and all. They probably think it's nothing but blistering heat, mud huts and jungles there.

[NYC_SKP]

2. No. The other side uses hate and fear.

Guns are just one of the many tools that are out there.

Other tools include the press and media, religion, and elected officials and lobbyists.

[xfundy]

3. We bring reason. They bring fearmongering.

We bring facts. They bring fake 'scientists' from either industry or their own "institutes" and "think tanks."

We bring honesty. They bring vicious lies and innuendo.

We bring non-violence. They bring guns and boards with nails sticking out of them.

Ultimately, we are smarter and more creative than them. (Just watch what they try to pass off as 'humor.'

We talk of a better world for all. They talk about themselves and screw anyone who hasn't got anything.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

6. The RW reallly do have a crappy sense of humor, don't they? Maybe humor and intelligence

really are highly correlated.

The current study lends support to the prediction that effective humor production acts as an honest indicator of intelligence in humans. In addition, extraversion, and to a lesser extent, openness, may reflect motivational traits that encourage humor production.

Humor as a Mental Fitness Indicator

[PowerToThePeople]

4. k&r. this is the world we live in.

Spot on analysis.