Change. Now!

Everyone is shocked and horrified at the terrible realities taking place in Charlottesville, North Carolina. Yes, people are actually defending a statue of Robert E. Lee which is being moved, not destroyed, to a location which no longer endorses our nations Antebellum slavery past. People are actually marching in KKK rallies, openly. And our president is actually being mute on how wrong all this is.

And yes, these neo-Nazis have just killed a counter-protester with a vehicle. Yes, Nazis have just killed an American on American soil.

In the midst of this is Peter Cvjetanovic, an undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno, who got identified as one of the attendees there.

"I am not the racist you see in the images," he is telling the world. After all, he wants the world to know that just because he marched and yelled and screamed racist shit, that doesn't mean he's a racist.

No, really.

Well, here's a thought, Peter. You're trying to put your ideas out there, and are frustrated that people won't listen. You want the world to understand your point of view, but people just aren't interested in seeing your side of things.

Frustrating, isn't it?

And maybe this underscores what I've been saying for years, that when one is confronted with contrary evidence, the thing to do is change one's own position first. Don't like that the overwhelming majority hates you? Maybe the overwhelming majority is right, for once!

Maybe, the person whose mind needs changing is you!

Don't get me wrong, it's hard to change one's ways, believe me, I know. I lost everything when I gave up my faith in Christianity. My career, my circle of friends, my standing among those in my community. It was a rough patch. So I can relate to you feeling daunted about the prospect of you giving up your bigotry. I can understand how you might pale (pardon the pun) at possibly losing your fellow David-Duke-supporting friends. I can see why you would want to retain your rank as a junior lieutenant in a small (very small!) army, rather than become a mere private in the army of what you mistakenly presume to be your (much larger!) enemy. Yeah, I get why you hesitate to throw that away.

But likewise, I can also not understand why you don't! I did it, and I'm a wuss. What the hell's your excuse?

However, I'm not just talking about you. I'm talking about everyone. Yes, everyone. We all, ALL, hold onto beliefs which we shouldn't, myself included. (Okay, I've gotten the major ones out of the way, but the minor ones I'm still working on.) We all do stupid shit, like mistake real news for fake, listen to Alex Jones (instead of me!), prefer the evil to the good, and attack people for exercising their own private freedom in a way that we don't like, as if that were at all our business. We all have our pet demons.

Well, I say kill your pet. Because it's not a pet, it's a leech. And it's sucking your brain dry.

This doesn't excuse you. Just because we're all in the same boat doesn't mean you and your misguided buddies aren't drilling holes in the bottom.

Knock it off!


Eric

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