The Faults in the Logic of the Left and the Right.

In politics, I pride myself in being a moderate, open-minded conservative. The vast majority of my core beliefs on legal issues and morality/ethics lean more towards the right. However, I don’t fully agree with everything the right stands for, or has to say for that matter. I do share certain beliefs with the left, and even when I disagree with it I am truly able and willing to hear them out every time.

Tuesday night I got in a heated debate with a co-worker pertaining to a topic which does nothing for the point of this discussion. However, what I got out of this back and forth argument which elicited unnecessary catharses, was a broader understanding and better, more lucid perspective on the faults embedded in the Logic of the Left and Right of many people in this country.

The faults of the Right: You often times implement these stringent standards, often times religion based, of how to live life on people who simply will never perceive the world in the same manner as you do. Moreover, many times you do not abide by your own rules or standards, yet are the first to judge, criticize, and ostracize those who disagree with your perceived notion of what is right or wrong. The sad, yet truthful reality, is that even if what you advocate for is inherently right, you lose credibility and lose a potential following when your actions contradict your words. Examples include, but are not limited to, loving your neighbor, “God loves everyone,” abortion, contraceptives, homosexuality etc.

The faults of the Left: You often times have loosely-knitted standards or value systems that are subject purely and utterly to contemporaneous trends. Moreover, very often, you feel that you are more liberal or open-minded, and consequently, intellectually superior to people with stringent standards. Many times to discredit their points you swiftly go after their hypocrisy or lack of consistency, ostensibly claiming that as a result their logic is folly. However, this is false. Proving someone’s hypocrisy only shows that person to be two-faced. It does not prove that what they said wasn’t intrinsically right. Just because Spitizer slept with a prostitute does that mean that his statements about prostitution being wrong are any less true?

In conclusion, the right has to learn to be consistent with their standards so that they are not being blind hypocrites endeavoring to lead others down the road of salvation; meanwhile, the left has to realize that hypocrisy is not a substantial argument against what a person deems right or wrong.

What is love?

     There has been a misconception on what Love is for several years. It is defined by mainstream society as “the butterflies” you get in your stomach when you’re with someone. Others say its feeling special by the way your loved one treats you. A lot of ifs and buts are included in the definition. But is this really love or are we simply not capable of understanding the depth of what its underlying meaning? Is love merely a frail, fleeting feeling to be forgotten tomorrow, or a mystery to be contemplated on?

     To understand love, we must realize that there are no ifs or buts. You do not love someone, if the feeling depends on how they treat you or on how you feel when you’re with them. True love fails to see common sense and reality; instead it blindly pursues what could in fact be detrimental for one’s own well being. Real love is self-sacrificing. It is being truly vulnerable for that one person, who has taken your breathe away. Love is putting someone else’s needs above your own, to be willing to die for someone without a single moment of hesitation. Essentially, to love is to suffer and become truly human. Too many mistake love with an aimless infatuation based on self actualization. Fools love is fleeting and will soon rust, but what is truly genuine will endure the weathering of time.

     Love completes us in a way that no other thing can. We go about our lives in autopilot, trying to find that other part that completes us. Once we find that person who makes us whole, we never want to feel incomplete again. But when looking for love we must not make wrong decisions that will harm us. They say love is blind and so it is all right to make mistakes. But the truth is another: love is not blind; it chooses to see what it wants to see, and there is a difference.

     Love can be the greatest of things, but it can also bring any man to his knees, begging for mercy that will never come.